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FROEBEL  AS  A  PIONEER  IN 
MODERN   PSYCHOLOGY 


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FROEBEL  AS  A   PIONEER 
IN  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 


BY 

E.  R.  MURRAY 

Author  of  "  A  Story  of  Infant  Schools  and  Kindergartens 


"  Through  the  battle,  through  defeat,  moving  yet  and  never  stopping. 
Pioneers  !    0  Pioneers  !  " 


BALTIMORE  Md. 
WARWICK  &   YORK,    INC. 

1914 


(All  rights  reserved) 


EducatiOD 
Library 

cot 


PREFACE 

Some  day  Froebel  will  come  to  his  own,  and  the  care- 
fulness of  his  observation,  the  depth  of  his  thought, 
the  truth  of  his  theories,  and  the  success  of  his  actual 
experiments  in  education  will  all  be  acknowledged. 

There  are  few  schools  nowadays  so  modern  as  the 

short-lived    Keilhau,    with    its    spirit    of   freedom    and 

independence  and  its  "Areopagus"  in  which  the  boys 

themselves    judged    grave    misdemeanours    while    the 

masters  settled  smaller  matters  alone.     There  are  few 

schools  now  which  have  such  an  all-round  curriculum, 

including,    as   it   did,    the   mother   tongue   as   well   as 

f^lassics  and  modern  languages  ;    ancient  and  modern 

-  ^  history  ;    Nature  study  and   Nature   rambles  ;    school 

/'    journeys,  lasting  for  two  or  three  weeks  and  extending 

•^-  as   far   as   Switzerland   for   the   older   lads,    while   the 

^  younger  boys  visited  German  towns  and  were  made 

^.--'^  acquainted  with  peasant  life  ;    definite  instruction  in 

field-work,  in  building  and  carpentry,   etc.  ;    religious 

teaching  in  which  Middendorf  endeavoured  "to  show 

the  merits  of  the  religions  of  all  nations"  ;    physical 

training  with   the   out-of-doors   wrestling  ground   and 

shooting    stand    and    gymnasium    "for    every    spare 

moment  of  the  winter,"   and  organized  games  ;    and 

dramatic  teaching  where  "classic  dramas"  and  other 

plays  were  performed,   and  for  which  the  boys  built 

the   stage   and   painted   the   scenes.     There   was   even 

co-education,     "flirtation    being    unknown,"     because 

all  had  their  heads  so  full  of  more  important  matters. 


vi  PREFACE 

but  where  free  intercourse  of  boy  and  girl  "softened 
the  manners  of  the  young  German  savages." 

The  purpose  of  this  book  is  to  show  that  all  these 
things,  besides  the  Kindergarten  and  the  excellent  plan 
for  the  Helba  Institute,  did  not  come  into  being  by 
chance,  but  were  the  outcome  of  the  deep  reflection 
of  a  man  who  combined  the  scientific  with  the  philo- 
sophic temperament ;  and  who,  because  his  ideal  as  a 
teacher  was  "Education  by  Development,"  had  made 
a  special  study  of  the  instinctive  tendencies,  and  the 
requirements  of  different  stages  of  child  development, 
as  I  have  tried  to  prove  in  Chapters  VI  and  VII. 

I  should  like  to  explain  one  or  two  points,  first,  that 
though  for  all  quotations  I  have  referred  to  the  most 
commonly  used  translations  of  Froebel's  writings,  yet 
I  have  frequently  given  my  own  rendering  when  the 
other  seemed  inadequate ;  secondly,  that  I  have 
endeavoured  to  give  the  context  as  often  as  possible, 
and  have  also  given  the  actual  German  words,  that  I 
might  not  be  accused  of  reading  in  modern  ideas  which 
are  not  really  in  the  text ;  and,  lastly,  that  I  have 
purposely  repeated  quotations  rather  than  give  my 
readers  the  trouble  of  turning  back  to  another  page. 

In  conclusion  may  I  take  this  opportunity  of  paying 
grateful  thanks  first  to  Miss  Alice  Words  and  to  Miss 
K.  M.  Clarke,  without  whose  kind  encouragement  I 
should  never  have  completed  my  task,  and  also  to 
Professor  Alexander  for  several  helpful  suggestions, 
and  to  Miss  Ida  Sachs  for  friendly  help. 

E.  R.  Murray. 


CONTENTS 

CHAP.  PAGE 

I.    froebel's   anticipation   of   modern 

PSYCHOLOGY 1 

II.     froebel's  analysis  of  mind       12 

III.  will  and  its  early  manifestations  . .        . .       22 

IV.  characteristics  of  the  earliest  conscious- 

ness      . .         36 

V.  how  consciousness  is  differentiated. — the 
place  of  action  in  the  development  of 
perception  and  of  feeling 47 

VI.     instinct  and  instincts       66 

VII.     play  and  its  relation  to  work         . .        . .     122 

VIII.    froebel's   play-materl\l  and   its   original 

purpose 148 

IX.      WEAK    points    CONSIDERED 168 

X.      some    CRITICISMS    ANSWERED  190 

APPENDIX   I.         ON      THE      MEANING      OF      THE      WORD 

"  ACTIVITY  " 213 

APPENDIX  II.  COMPARISON  OF  PLAYS  NOTED  BY 
FROEBEL  with  THE  ENUMERATION  GIVEN  BY 
GROOS 219 

INDEX 225 


EXPLANATION  OF  REFERENCES 

To  the  Works  of  Froebel  quoted  in  the  text 

E  =  EDUCATION  OF  MAN.      TRANSLATED  BY  W.  N.  HAILMANN. 

M  =  MUTTER   U.    KOSE    LIEDER.      TRANSLATED    BY  F.  AND  E. 
LORD. 

P  ^  PEDAGOGICS    OF   THE    KINDERGARTEN.     TRANSLATED    BY 
JOSEPHINE   JARVIS. 

L  :=-.  LETTERS.  |     TRANSLATED    BY    EMILIE    MICHAELIS 

A  =  AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  I     AND  H.  KEATLEY  MOORE,  B.A.,  B.MUS. 


CHAPTER  I 

Froebel's  Anticipation  of  Modern  Psychology 

"^  great  man  condemns  the  world  to  the  task  of  explaining 

him." 

npHE  purpose  of  this  little  book  is  to  show  that 
Froebel's  educational  theories  were  based  on 
psychological  views  of  a  type  much  more  modern 
than  is  at  all  generally  understood.  It  is  frequently 
stated  that  Froebel's  psychology  is  conspicuous  by  its 
absence,  but  in  a  somewhat  close  study  of  Froebel's 
writings  I  have  been  again  and  again  surprised  to  find 
how  much  Froebel  seems  to  have  anticipated  modern 
psychology. 

A  probable  reason  for  the  overlooking  of  so  much 
sound  psychological  truth  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that 
much  of  it  is  obscured  by  details  which  seem  to  us 
trivial,  but  which  Froebel  meant  as  applications  of  the 
theories  he  was  endeavouring  to  make  clear  to  minds 
not  only  innocent  of,  but  incapable  of,  psychology. 

Most  educationists  have  read  "The  Education  of 
Man,"  but  few  outside  the  Kindergarten  world  are 
likely  to  have  bestowed  much  thought  on  Froebel's 
later  writings.  It  is  in  these,  however,  that  we  see 
Froebel  watching  with  earnest  attention  that  earliest 
mental  development  which  is  now  regarded  as  a  distinct 
chapter  in  mental  science,  but  which  was  then  largely 
if  not  entirely  ignored. 


2    FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

With  the  same  spirit  of  inquiry  and  the  same  field 
for  investigation — for  children  acted  and  thought  then 
as  they  act  and  think  now — it  is  only  natural  that 
Froebel  should  have  made  at  least  some  of  the  same 
discoveries  as  the  genetic  psychologist  of  to-day. 

It  would  be  unfair  at  any  date  to  expect  a  com- 
plete psychology  from  a  writer  whose  subject  is  not 
mental  science,  but  education.  Mistakes,  too,  one  must 
expect,  and  these  are  not  to  be  ignored.*  Still  there 
remains  a  solid  amount  of  psychological  discovery 
for  which  Froebel  has  had  as  yet  but  little  credit. 

Indeed,  just  as  his  disciples  have  been  inclined, 
like  all  disciples,  to  think  that  their  master  has  said  the 
last  word  on  his  own  subject,  so  have  opponents  of 
Froebelian  doctrines,  irritated  perhaps  by  these  preten- 
sions, made  direct  attacks  on  somewhat  insufficient 
grounds.  In  a  later  chapter,  an  attempt  has  been 
made  to  deal  with  what  seems  unfounded  in  such 
attacks. t 

The  major  part  of  the  book,  however,  is  intended  to 
show  the  correctness  of  Froebel' s  views  on  points  now 
regarded  as  of  fundamental  importance,  and  generally 
recognized  as  modern  theories.  For  this  purpose  passages 
from  Froebel' s  writings  are  here  compared  with  similar 
passages  from  such  undoubted  authorities  as  Dr.  James 
Ward,  Professor  Stout,  Professor  Lloyd  Morgan,  Mr. 
W.  Macdougall,  Mr.  J.  Irving  King,  and  others. 

In  the  first  place,  it  should  be  noted  that  Froebel 
was  fully  aware  of  the  necessity  for  a  psychological 
basis  for  his  educational  theories. 

Writing  in  1841,  he  says  : 

"  I  am  firmly  convinced  that  all  the  phenomena 
of  the' child  world,  those  which  delight  us,  as  well 
as  those  which  grieve  us,  depend  upon  fixed  laws  as 

*  See  Chapter  EX.      f  See  Chapter  X. 


ANTICIPATION  OF  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY       3 

definite  as  those  of  the  cosmos,  the  planetary 
system  and  the  operations  of  Nature  ;  it  is  therefore 
possible  to  discover  them  and  examine  them. 
When  once  we  know  and  have  assimilated  these 
laws,  we  shall  be  able  powerfully  to  counteract 
any  retrograde  and  faulty  tendencies  in  children, 
and  to  encourage,  at  the  same  time,  all  that  is 
good  and  virtuous." — L.,  p.  91. 

Nor  was  Froebel  in  any  doubt  as  to  how  these  laws 
are  to  be  discovered,  and  his  order  of  investigation  is 
very  similar  to  that  prescribed  by  Professor  Stout. 
The  latter,  though  regarding  genetic  psychology  as 
"  the  most  important  and  most  interesting,"  considers 
that  it  should  be  preceded  by  : — 1,  A  general  analysis 
of  consciousness,  analytic  and  largely  introspective ; 
2,  An  investigation  of  the  laws  of  mental  process, 
"  analytic  also,  inasmuch  as  we  endeavour  to  ascertain 
the  general  laws  of  mental  process  by  analysis  of  the" 
fully  developed  mind." 

Froebel,  too,  regards  the  analytic  as  a  necessary 
preparation  for  the  genetic,  and  says  that  parents  and 
teachers,  who  wish  to  supply  the  needs  of  the  child  at 
different  stages  of  development : 

"are  to  consider  life  firstly  through  looking  into 
themselves,  into  the  course  of  their  own  develop- 
ment, its  phenomena  and  its  claims — through  the 
retrospection  (Riickblick)  of  the  earliest  possible 
years  of  their  own  lives,  and  also  the  introspection 
(Einblick)  of  their  present  lives,  that  their  own 
experience  may  furnish  a  key  to  the  problem  of 
the  child's  condition  (den  Zustand  des  Kindes  in 
sich  zu  losen).  Secondly,  by  the  deepest  possible 
search  into  the  life  of  the  child,  and  into  what 
he  must  necessarily  require  according  to  his  pre- 
sent stage  of  development." — P.,  p.  168. 


4    FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

Professor  Stout  adds  later  that  anthropology  and 
philology  may  ultimately  yield  results  as  important  as 
those  yielded  by  physiology.  Froebel  could  have  no 
idea  of  the  physiological  parallel  to  mental  process, 
but  he  did  not  omit  the  anthropological  inquiry,  for  in 
another  passage  he  enlarges  his  first  point,  declaring 
that : 

"It  is  essential  for  parents  and  teachers,  for 
the  sake  of  their  children,  and  that  their  educational 
efforts  may  meet  with  a  rich  reward,  not  only  to 
recall  as  far  as  possible  the  first  phenomena,  the 
course  and  conditions  of  the  development  of  their 
own  lives,  but  that  they  should  compare  this  with 
the  phenomena,  the  course  and  conditions  of  the 
development  of  the  world,  and  of  life  in  general  in 
Nature  and  History,  and  so  by  degrees  raise  them- 
selves to  a  knowledge  of  the  general  as  well  as  of 
the  particular  laws  of  life  development,  that  the 
guidance  of  the  child  may  find  in  these  laws  a  higher 
and  stronger — their  true  foundation,  as  well  as 
their  surest  determination." — P.,  p.  66. 

Even  his  detractors  generally  allow  that  Froebel 
had  a  wonderful  insight  into  child-nature,  but  this  is 
too  often  spoken  of  as  if  it  were  due  to  some  special- 
ized faculty  of  intuition,  not  known  to  psychology. 

Froebel's  knowledge  of  child-nature  came  to  him 
precisely  as  it  comes  to  the  psychologist  of  the  present 
day,  through  patient  observation  of  the  doings  of  little 
children,  and  thoughtful  interpretation  of  their  possible 
meaning.  It  is  true  that  he  drew  his  conclusions  from 
too  narrow  a  field,  but  of  this  he  was  well  aware.  In 
a  letter  to  a  cousin  thanking  her  for  the  "  comparative 
account  of  the  various  manifestations  of  children," 
which  she  had  sent  him,  he  complains,  and  this,  he  it 
remembered,  in  1840,  that  "it  is   a   subject  to  which 


ANTICIPATION  OF  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY      5 

one   can   rarely   get   even   cultivated    parents   to   pay 
attention,"  and  he  adds  : 

"I  would  beg  of  you  to  collect  as  many  obser- 
vations for  me  as  you  can,  both  things  which  you 
yourself  have  observed,  and  also  remarks  made  by 
your  Robert  and  the  other  children  when  at  play. 
If  you  have  the  time  for  this,  pray  do  it  for  the 
furtherance  of  the  cause  ;  other  friends  are  at  work 
for  me  in  the  same  way." — L.,  p.  67. 

In  another  letter  to  this  cousin  he  says  : 

"  It  would  delight  me  greatly  if  you  could  con- 
fide to  me  what  you  remember  of  your  feelings, 
perceptions,  and  ideas  as  a  mother  greeting  the 
new-born  life  of  her  infant,  and  your  observations 
of  the  first  movements  of  its  limbs  and  the  begin- 
ning of  the  development  of  its  senses." — L.,  p.  110. 

To  another  friend  he  writes  : 

"In  the  interests  of  the  children  I  have  still 
another  request  to  make — that  you  would  record 
in  writing  the  most  important  facts  about  each 
separate  child.  It  seems  to  me  most  necessary  for 
the  comprehension,  and  for  the  true  treatment  of 
child-nature,  that  such  observations  should  be  made 
public  from  time  to  time,  in  order  that  children 
may  become  better  and  better  understood  in  their 
manifestations,  and  may  therefore  be  more  rightly 
treated,  and  that  true  care  and  observation  of 
unsophisticated  childhood  may  ever  increase." — 
/..,  p.  89. 

Froebel  made  these  requests,  as  he  made  his  own 
observations,  as  the  result  of  the  conviction  with  which 
he  declares  himself  "thoroughly  penetrated," 

"that  the  movements  of  the  young  and  delicate 
mind  of  the  child,  although  as  yet  so  small  as  to  be 


6  FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

almost    unnoticeable,    are    of    the    most    essential 
consequence  to  his  future  life." — P.,  p.  53. 

"Why  do  we  observe  the  child  less  than  the 
germ  of  a  plant  ?  Is  it  to  be  supposed  that  in  the 
child,  the  capacity  to  become  a  complete  human 
being  is  contained  less  than  in  the  acorn  is  con- 
tained the  capacity  to  become  a  strong,  vigorous 
and  complete  oak  ?  " — P.,  p.  62. 

"We  cannot  pass  over  unmentioned  the  fact, 
essential  for  the  whole  life  of  the  child,  for  the 
whole  course  of  his  development,  that  phenomena 
and  impressions  which  seem  to  us  insignificant, 
and  which  we  generally  leave  unnoticed,  have  for 
the  child,  and  especially  for  his  inner  world,  most 
important  results,  since  the  child  develops  more 
through  what  seems  to  us  small  and  imperceptible, 
than  through  what  appears  to  us  large  and  striking 
.  .  .  hence — wholly  contrary  to  prevailing  opinion 
— nowhere  is  consideration  of  that  which  is  small 
and  insignificant  of  more  importance  than  in  the 
nursery." — P.,  p.  125. 

Professor  Dewey,  one  of  the  few  important  educa- 
tional writers  who  do  justice  to  Froebel  as  a  pioneer, 
gives  as  a  general  summary  of  his  educational  prin- 
ciples : 

"1.  That  the  primary  business  of  school  is  to  train 
children  in  co-operative  and  mutually  helpful  living  ; 
to  foster  in  them  the  consciousness  of  mutual  inter- 
dependence, and  to  help  them  practically  in  making 
the  adjustments  that  will  carry  this  spirit  into  overt 
deeds. 

"  2.  That  the  primary  root  of  all  educative  activity 
is  in  the  instinctive,  impulsive  attitudes  and  activities 


ANTICIPATION  OF  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY      7 

of  the  child,  and  not  in  the  presentation  and  appHcation 
of  external  material,  whether  through  the  ideas  of 
others  or  through  the  senses ;  and  that,  accordingly, 
numberless  spontaneous  activities  of  children,  plays, 
games,  mimic  efforts,  even  the  apparently  meaningless 
motions  of  infants — exhibitions  previously  ignored  as 
trivial,  futile,  or  even  condemned  as  positively  evil — 
are  capable  of  educational  use,  nay,  are  the  foundation- 
stones  of  educational  effort. 

"8.  That  these  individual  tendencies  and  activities 
are  organized  and  directed  through  the  uses  made  of 
them  in  keeping  up  the  co-operative  living  already 
spoken  of ;  taking  advantage  of  them  to  reproduce  on 
the  child's  plane  the  typical  doings  and  occupations  of 
the  larger  maturer  society  into  which  he  is  finally 
to  go  forth ;  and  that  it  is  through  production  and 
creative  use  that  valuable  knowledge  is  secured  and 
clinched."  * 

So  little,  however,  are  these  principles  understood 
as  Froebel's,  that  in  the  Pedagogical  Seminary  for 
July,  1900,  a  paper  was  published  on  "The  Reconstruc- 
tion of  the  Kindergarten,"  wherein  it  was  maintained 
that  the  basis  of  reconstruction  must  be  the  child's 
natural  instincts.  The  writer,  Mr.  Eby,  had  apparently 
no  idea  that  the  Kindergarten  was  originally  based  on 
this  very  foundation.  He  evidently  did  not  know  that 
Froebel  has  given,  in  his  "Education  of  Man,"  a  very 
fair  account  of  these  instincts,  omitting  nothing  of  great 
importance,  and  pointing,  at  least,  to  a  better  principle 
of  classification  than  that  adopted  by  Mr.  Eby.^j*  It  is, 
however,  only  fair  to  Froebel  to  mention  that  he  himself 
regarded  his  own  account  as  far  from  being  commen- 
surate with  the  importance  of  the  subject,  for  the  year 

*  "Froebel's  Educational  Principles,"  Elementary  School  Record, 
Vol  I,  No.  5,  or  "  The  Dewey  School,"  published  by  the  Froebel  Society. 
t  See  Chapter  VI,  p.  79. 


8    FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

following  that  of  the  publication  of  "  The  Education 
of  Man  "  he  writes  : 

"Since  these  spontaneous  activities  of  children 
have  not  yet  been  thoroughly  thought  out  from  a 
high  point  of  view,  and  have  not  yet  been  regarded 
from  what  I  might  almost  call  their  cosmical  and 
anthropological  side,  we  may  from  day  to  day 
expect  some  philosopher  to  write  a  comprehensive 
book  about  them." — A.,  p.  76. 

The  problems  Froebel  endeavoured  to  solve  are 
precisely  those  which  are  absorbing  the  genetic 
psychologist  of  the  present  day,  as  stated,  for  example, 
in  Mr.  Irving  King's  "Psychology  of  Child  Develop- 
ment," viz.  :  "to  examine  the  various  forms  of  the 
child's  activity,  to  get  some  insight  into  the  nature  of 
the  child  himself  " — "  to  get  at  the  meaning  of  child- 
life  in  terms  of  itself." 

Every  reader  of  "  The  Education  of  Man "  will 
remember  how  Froebel  uses  his  own  boyish  reminis- 
cences to  help  others  to  understand  childish  actions 
often  utterly  misunderstood.  In  his  paper  on  "Move- 
ment Plays  "  he  writes  : 

"  In  that  nurture  of  childhood  which  is  intended 
to  assist  development,  it  is  by  no  means  sufficient 
to  supply  play-material  in  proportion  merely  to  the 
stage  of  development  already  outwardly  manifest. 
It  is  at  the  same  time  of  the  utmost  importance  to 
trace  out  the  inner  process  of  development  and  to 
satisfy  its  demands.  ...  In  the  nurture,  develop- 
ment, and  education  of  the  child,  and  especially  in 
the  attempt  to  employ  him,  his  own  nature,  his  own 
life  and  energy  must  be  the  main  consideration. 
The  knowledge  of  isolated  and  external  phenomena 
may   occasionally   be    a    guide-post   pointing  our 


ANTICIPATION  OF  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY       9 

direction,  but  it  can  never  be  a  path  leading  to  the 
specific  aim  of  child  culture  and  education  ;  for 
the  condition  of  education  is  none  other  than  compre- 
hension of  the  whole  nature  and  essence  of  humanity 
as  manifested  in  the  child." — P.,  p.  239. 

Just  as  Mr.  Irving  King,  writing  in  1904,  says  that 
we  must  take  as  our  starting-point  the  child's  bodily 
activities,  so  did  Froebel  too  declare,  that : 

"The  present  time  makes  upon  the  educator 
the  wholly  indispensable  requirement — to  com- 
prehend the  earliest  activity,  the  first  action  of 
the  child."— P.,  p.  16. 

To  this  first  action,  Froebel  devotes  a  whole  paper, 
"Das  erste  Kindesthun,"  the  opening  sentence  of  which 
contains  the  words  : 

"As  the  new-born  child,  like  a  ripe  grain  of 
corn,  bears  life  within  itself  which  will  be  developed 
progressively  and  spontaneously,  though  in  close 
connection  with  life  in  general,  so  activity  and 
action  are  the  first  manifestations  of  awakening 
child-Hfe."— P.,  p.  23. 

Writing  in  1847,  Froebel  says  that  "decision,  zeal, 
and  perseverance  "  must  be  brought  to  bear  upon  his 
plan,  in  order  that : 

"(a)  More  careful  observation  of  the  child,  his 
relationships  and  his  line  of  development,  may 
become  general  amongst  us  ;   and  thereby 

"  (6)  A  better  grounded  insight  be  obtained  into 
the  child's  being,   mental  and  physical,   and  the 

general    collective    conditions    of    his    life 

Deeper  insight  will  be  gained  into  the  meaning  and 
importance  of  the  child's  actions  and  outward 
manifestations." — L.,  p.  248. 


10   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

This  quotation  is  important  as  showing  that  Froebel 
was  deliberately  looking  for  "a  line  of  development" 
that  he  might  better  miderstand  "the  child's  being, 
mental  and  physical."  Considering  that  Froebel  wrote 
between  1826  and  1850,  the  important  points  on  which 
he  may  be  said  to  have  successfully  anticipated  modern 
psychology  are,  his  recognition  that  the  mind  is  what 
he  calls  "a  tri-unity"  of  action,  feeUng,  and  thought; 
his  treatment  of  early  mental  activity  and  his  definition 
of  will ;  his  conception  of  the  earliest  consciousness 
as  an  undifferentiated  whole ;  his  recognition  of  the 
importance  of  action  not  only  in  the  realm  of  percep- 
tion, but  also  in  that  of  feeling ;  and  his  surprisingly 
complete  account  of  instinct.  Such  anticipations  are 
due  to  the  fact  that  the  idea  of  development  then 
new  to  the  scientific  world  possessed  his  very  soul. 

"Humanity,  which  lives  only  in  its  coniinuous 
development  and  cultivation,  seems  to  us  dead  and 
stationary,  something  to  be  modelled  over  again 
and  again  in  accordance  with  its  present  type. 
We  are  ignorant  of  our  own  nature  and  the  nature 
of  humanity.  .  .  ."—E.,  p.  146. 

"God  neither  ingrafts  nor  inoculates.  He 
develops  the  most  trivial  and  imperfect  things  in 
continuously  ascending  series  and  in  accordance 
with  eternal  self-grounded  and  self-developing  laws. 
And  God-likeness  is  and  ought  to  be  man's  highest 
aim  in  thought  and  deed." — E.,  p.  328. 

Justice  has  already  been  done  to  Froebel' s  philo- 
sophy by  Dr.  John  Angus  MacVannel,  who  says  in  his 
closing  paragraph  : 

"Froebel's  system  has  that  unmistakable  mark  of 
greatness  about  it  that  makes  it  worth  our  faithful  effort 
to  imderstand  it,  and  turn  its  conclusions  to  our  advan- 


ANTICIPATION  OF  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY     11 

tage.  .  .  .  His  philosophy  of^education  taken  as  a  whole 
seems,  perhaps,  the  most  satisfactory  we  have  yet  had. 
One  cannot  but  believe,  however,  that  the  candid  reader 
will  at  times  find  conclusions  in  his  writings  sustained 
by  reasonings,  that  are  inadequately  developed  and 
important  questions  by  no  means  satisfactorily  answered. 
.  .  .  On  the  other  hand  we  must  not  forget  that  it  is 
insight,  rather  than  exactitude,  that  is  the  life  of  a 
philosophy ;  herein  lies  the  secret  of  Froebel's  lasting 
influence  and  power."* 

*  The  Philosophy  and  Psychology  of  the  Kindergarten. — "  Teachers' 
College  Record,"  Nov.,  1903. 


CHAPTER  II 

Froebel's  Analysis  of  Mind 

TT  is  probably  due  to  the  emphasis  which  Froebel  laid 
upon  the  careful  observation  and  equally  careful 
interpretation  of  the  very  earliest  manifestations  of 
mental  activity,  that  his  views  as  to  mental  analysis 
approach  so  closely  to  more  modern  ideas.  His  psy- 
chology cannot  possibly  be  dismissed  as  "faculty 
psychology  "  in  which  the  mind  of  a  child  is  regarded  as 
a  smaller  and  weaker  replica  of  the  mind  of  an  adult. 
The  older  psychologies,  Professor  Stout  points  out,  are 
based  chiefly,  if  not  entirely,  on  introspection  alone, 
while  Froebel,  as  we  have  already  seen,  demanded 
close  observation  of  children  in  general,  and  of  "each 
separate  child,"  as  well  as  consideration  of  mental 
development  in  the  race,  in  addition  to  introspection. 

This  "too  exclusive  reliance  upon  introspection"  to 
which  Professor  Stout  refers  as  "the  fundamental  error" 
of  the  faculty  psychology,  caused  the  older  writers  to 
infer  that  just  as  a  child  is  possessed  of  legs,  arms  and 
hands,  smaller  and  weaker,  but  otherwise  apparently  the 
same  as  those  of  an  adult,  even  so  did  he  possess  mental 
"faculties,"  such  as  memory  and  imagination,  which, 
like  the  little  legs  and  arms,  only  required  exercise  in 
order  to  grow  strong.  "It  never  occurred  to  them," 
writes  Professor  Stout,  "that  the  powers  of  under- 
standing, willing,  imagining,  etc.,  instead  of  existing  at 
the  outset,  might  have  arisen  as  the  result  of  a  long 


ANALYSIS  OF  MIND  13 

series  of  changes,  each  of  which  paved  the  way  for  the 
next."  It  did  more  than  ''occur"  to  Froebel,  it  was  a 
cardinal  point  with  him.  Professor  Stout  points  out  that 
the  idea  of  development  is  essential  to  mental  science, 
and  Froebel  was  a  biologist  actually  studying  develop- 
ment, before  he  became  a  psychologist.  He  came  to  the 
study  of  mind  prepared  to  find  just  such  a  series  of 
changes.*  In  speaking  of  evolution  in  general,  he 
says  : 

"Each  successive  stage  of  development  does  not 
exclude  the  preceding,  but  takes  it  up  into  itself, 
ennobled,  uplifted,  perfected." — P.,  p.  198. 

He  speaks  of : 

"the  master  thought,  the  fundamental  idea  of  our 
time,  that  is,  the  education  and  development  of 
mankind." — L.,  p.  149. 

And  in  his  "Education  of  Man,"  in  a  long  and  eloquent 
passage  on  the  need  for  continuity  of  training  from  the 
tiniest  of  beginnings,  he  says  : 

"It  is  highly  pernicious  and  even  destructive 
to  consider  the  stages  of  human  development  as 
distinct,  and  not  as  life  shows  them,  continuous  in 
themselves,  in  unbroken  transitions." — E.,  p.  27. 

The  analysis  of  mind  which  Froebel  recognizes,  is 
the  still  commonly  accepted  "  tri-partite,"  but  he  never 
fails  to  refer  to  this  as  a  unity  or  a  tri-unity.  Indeed, 
his  constant  harping  upon  this  string  becomes  almost 
wearisome,  in  spite  of  the  ingenuity  with  which  he 
continually  varies  his  terms. 

"  The  early  phenomenon  of  child-life,  of  human 
existence  in  childhood,  is  an  activity,  one  with 
feeling  and  perception  (Wahrnehmen). — P.,  p.  23. 

*  It  is  true  that  Froebel  was  pre-Darwinian,  but  see  p.  198. 


14   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

"  That  the  nature  of  man  shows  itself  early  in 
the  life  of  the  child,  as  feeling,  acting  and  repre- 
senting, thinking  and  perceiving,  and  that  in  this 
tri-unity  is  included  the  whole  of  his  life  utterance 
and  activity,  we  have  said  repeatedly,  and  it  lies 
open  for  any  one  to  notice." — P.,  p.  122. 

Disguised  as  Love,  Life,  and  Light,  this  trinity  is 
made  the  connection  of  man,  on  the  one  side  with 
Nature,  on  the  other  side  with  God.  God — who  is  Life, 
Love,  and  Light,  the  All — shows  Himself  in  Nature,  in 
the  universe  as  life  (energy),  in  humanity  as  love,  and 
in  wisdom  or  in  the  spirit  as  light.  Energy  or  life 
man  shares  with  Nature ;  by  love  he  is  united  with 
humanity ;  and  by  light  or  wisdom  he  is  at  one 
with  God. 

For  his  "gift  plays"  Froebel  claims  that  they  "take 
hold  of  the  child  in  the  tri-unity  of  his  nature"  : 

"As  now  each  of  the  single  plays  separately 
considered  takes  hold  of  the  child  early,  in  the 
tri-unity  of  his  nature,  as  doing,  feeling,  and  think- 
ing, so  yet  more  do  the  employments  as  a  whole." 
—P.,  p.  56. 

And  a  forcible  passage  runs  : 

"Only  if  the  child  is  treated  through  fostering 
his  instinct  for  activity  in  the  tri-unity  of  his  nature, 
as  living,  loving,  and  perceiving,  in  the  unity  of  his 
life,  only  thus  can  he  develop  as  that  which  he  is, 
the  manifold  and  organized,  but  in  himself  single, 
whole."— P.,;?.  12. 

This  development  of  the  threefold  yet  single  nature 
constitutes  the  "harmonious  development,"  reiterated 
ad  nauseam  and  without  explanation,  in  Kindergarten 
text-books.   It  is  also  the  key  to  much  that  seems  to  us 


ANALYSIS  OF  MIND  15 

useless  detail  as  to  the  toys  and  games  of  early  child- 
hood.    The  mother  is  told  that : 

"It  is  of  the  highest  importance  for  the  nurse 
to  consider  the  earliest  and  slightest  traces  of  the 
organization  (Gliederung)  within  itself  of  the  child's 
mind  as  bodily,  emotional  and  intellectual,  that  in 
his  development  from  mere  existence  to  perception 
and  thought,  none  of  these  directions  of  his  nature 
should  be  fostered  at  the  expense  of  the  other  .  .  . 
the  real  foundation,  the  starting-point  of  human 
development  is  the  heart  and  the  emotions,  but 
cultivation  of  action  and  thought  (die  Ausbildung 
zur  That  und  zum  Denken)  must  go  side  by  side 
with  it,  constantly  and  inseparably  :  and  thought 
must  form  itself  into  action,  and  action  resolve 
and  clear  itself  into  thought ;  but  both  have  their 
roots  in  the  emotional  nature."* — P.,  p.  42. 

The  first  part  of  the  following  quotation  from  a 
letter  written  in  1851  towards  the  close  of  Froebel's 
life  might  almost  be  taken  from  a  text-book  of  the 
present  day  : 

"We  find  also  three  attitudes,  spheres  of  work, 
and  regions  of  mind  in  man  : 

"(1)  the  region  of  the  soul,  the  heart,  Feeling ; 

"  (2)  the  region  of  the  mind,  the  head.  Intellect ; 

"(3)  the  region  of  the  active  life,  the  putting 
forth  to  actual  deed,  Will. 

"  As  mental  attitudes  these  three  divisions  seem 
the  wider  apart  the  more  we  contemplate  them  ; 

♦  All  this  is  said  in  connection  with  the  infant's  play  with  a 
woollen  ball,  with  quaint  suggestions  that  the  singing  tone  accom- 
panying the  swinging  like  a  ball  affects  the  feelings,  while  the 
recognition  of  a  change  of  position  is  a  thing  of  "  dawning  thought," 
and  that  by  tic-tae  the  movement  is  expressed.    See  p.  176. 


16   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

as  spheres  of  work  and  regions  of  mind  they  seem 
quite  separate  and  perfect  opposites.  But  the 
highest  and  most  absolute  opposition  is  that  which 
most  needs,  and  necessitates  reconcihation  ;  com- 
plete opposites  condition  their  uniting  link.  The 
need  for  the  uniting  link  appears  in  almost  every 
circumstance  of  life.  ...  To  satisfy  that  need  is  the 
most  imperative  need  now  set  before  the  human 
race,  .  .  .  you  will  realize  that  the  strengthening 
of  character  which  we  all  agree  to  be  a  necessity 
of  the  age,  is  to  be  gained  not  only  by  stimulat- 
ing and  elevating  the  soul  and  the  emotions,  but 
by  raising  the  whole  mind,  by  training  the  in- 
tellect and  the  will.  .  .  .  Then  the  heart  would 
acknowledge  and  esteem  the  intellectual  power, 
just  as  the  intellect  already  recognizes  feeling 
as  that  which  gives  true  warmth  to  our  lives ; 
and  life  as  a  whole  would  make  manifest  the 
soul  which  quickens  existence,  and  gives  it  a 
meaning,  as  well  as  the  intellect  which  gives  it 
precision  and  culture.  Intellect,  feeling  and  will 
would  then  unite,  a  many-sided  power,  to  build 
up  and  constitute  our  life.  In  the  room  of  the 
unstable  character  which  must  result  from  the 
mere  cultivation  of  the  one  department  of  emo- 
tion ;  in  the  room  of  the  doubt,  or,  I  might 
say  empty  negation,  which  too  often  proceeds 
from  the  mere  cultivation  of  the  intellect ;  in 
the  room  of  the  materialism,  animalism,  and  sen- 
suality which  must  come  from  the  mere  attention 
to  the  body,  and  physical  side  of  our  nature  ;  we 
should  then  have  the  harmonious  development  of 
every  side  of  our  nature  alike,  we  should  then  be 
able  to  build  up  a  life  which  would  be  everywhere 
in  touch  with  God,  with  physical  nature,  with 
humanity  at  large." — L.,  p.  300. 


ANALYSIS  OF  MIND  17 

In  his  article  in  the  Encyclopaedia  Britannica, 
Dr.  Ward  says,  that  in  taking  up  the  question  of  what 
we  exactly  mean  by  thinking,  "we  are  really  passing 
one  of  the  hardest  and  fastest  lines  of  the  old  psychology 
— ^that  between  sense  and  understanding.  So  long  as 
it  was  the  fashion  to  assume  a  multiplicity  of  faculties 
the  need  was  less  felt  for  a  clear  exposition  of  their 
connection.  A  man  had  senses  and  intellect  much  as 
he  had  eyes  and  ears  ;  the  heterogeneity  in  the  one 
case  was  no  more  puzzling  than  in  the  other." 

In  this  connection  it  can  again  be  shown  that  Froebel 
was  in  advance  of  the  old  psychologists.  In  the  first 
of  the  two  games  in  the  Mother-Play  book  dealing  with 
sense-training — two  out  of  forty-nine,  the  remainder 
dealing  chiefly  with  action — he  makes  it  very  clear  that 
he  draws  no  hard  and  fast  line  between  sense  and 
understanding.  He  tells  the  mother  that  Nature 
speaks  to  the  child  through  the  senses,  which  act  as 
gateways  to  the  world  within,  but  that  light  comes 
from  the  mind  : 

"Durch  die  Sinne,  schliesst  sich  auf  des  Innern  Thor 
Doch  der  Geist  ist's  der  dies  zieht  ans  Licht  hervor." 

And  when  he  says  that  the  baby  in  the  cradle  should 
not  be  left  unoccupied  if  it  wakes,  he  uses  a  pronoun  in 
the  singular  in  referring  to  "the  activity  of  sense  and 
mind."  He  suggests  hanging  a  cage  containing  a  lively 
bird  in  the  child's  line  of  visipn  and  adds  : 

"  This  attracts  the  activity  of  the  child's 
senses  and  mind  and  gives  it  nourishment  in  many 
ways."* — E.,  p.  49. 

The  faculty  psychology  and  the  formal  discipline 
theory  that  came  from  it,  says  Professor  Home,  did  not 

♦  Dies  fesselt  die  Sinnen-und  Geistesthiitigkeit  des   Kindes   imd 
gibt  ihin  mehrseitige  Nahrung. 


18   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

admit  the  possibility  of  training  one  faculty,  e.g.  per- 
ception, by  training  another,  e.g.  reason,  "it  was  not 
the  mind  that  was  trained,  but  its  faculties." 

It  is,  however,  of  the  merest  infant  that  Froebel 
uses  such  expressions  as  "  the  awakening  power  of 
thought,"  "  the  tenderest  growth  of  mind,"  and  tells 
the  mother  that  he  "shows  trace  of  thought,  and  can 
draw  conclusions."  The  ball  is  given  to  the  baby  to 
help  him  "  to  find  himself  in  the  midst  of  his  percep- 
tive, operative,  and  his  comparing  (thinking)  activity."* 
— P.,  p.  55.  Long  years  before  this  he  had  written  of 
the  teaching  of  drawing,  "  this  instruction  addresses 
itself  to  the  senses,  and  through  them  to  the  power 
of  thought."— JS.,  p.  294. 

"He  who  does  not  perceive  traces  of  the  future 
development  of  the  child,  who  does  not  foster  these 
with  self-consciousness  and  wisdom,  when  they  lie 
hidden  in  the  depths  and  in  the  night,  will  not 
see  them  clearly,  will  not  nourish  them  suitably, 
at  least,  not  sufficiently,  when  they  lie  open  before 
him."— P.,  p.  58. 

Instead  of  ready-made  faculties  Froebel  recognizes 
possibilities,  conditions,  which  will  remain  possibilities 
if  the  necessary  stimulus  is  not  forthcoming,  for  in 
noting  how  the  mother  talks  to  her  infant,  though  she 
is  obliged  to  confess  that  there  can  be  no  understanding 
of  her  words,  he  says  the  mother's  instinctive  action 
is  right : 

"for  that  which  will  one  day  develop,  and  which 
must  originate,  begins  and  must  begin  when  as 
yet  nothing  exists  but  the  conditions,  the  possi- 
bihty."— P.,  p,  40. 

*  In    der   Mitte    seiner    wahrnehmenden    (empfindenden)    seiner 
wirkenden     und     schaffenden,    seiner     vergleichenden     (denkenden) 

Thatigkeit. 


ANALYSIS  OF  MIND  19 

Elsewhere  he  asks  : 

"Is  it  to  be  supposed  that  in  the  child  the 
capacity  for  becoming  a  complete  human  being 
is  contained  less  than  in  the  acorn  is  contained 
the  capacity  to  become  a  strong,  vigorous  and 
complete  oak  ?  "—P.,  p.  62. 

And   he   speaks   of   how  the   mother   appeals   to   the 
infant  as 

"understanding,  perceptive  and  capable,  for  where 
there  is  not  the  germ  of  something,  that  something 
can  never  be  called  forth  and  appear." — P.,  p.  31. 

It  is  true  that  in  the  same  passage  in  which  he 
speaks  of  "  the  tenderest  growth  of  mind,"  he 
does  speak  of  mental  powers  (Geisteskrafte),  as  indeed 
every  one  does,  but  a  few  lines  above  he  has  spoken 
of  "  the  cultivation  of  the  mental  power  of  the  child 
in  different  directions."  *  Besides,  the  mental  powers  to 
which  he  here  alludes,  and  which  are  to  be  awakened 
and  fostered  in  the  infant,  are  the  powers  "to  com- 
pare, to  infer,  to  judge,  to  think." — P.,  p.  57.  Here, 
too,  Froebel  gives  a  description  of  what  he  means  by 
memory,  and  it  is  clearly  not  a  separate  faculty  con- 
sidered apart  from  another  faculty,  viz.  imagination  : 

"The  plays  carried  on  with  the  ball  awaken 
and  exercise  the  power  of  the  child's  mind  to  place 
again  before  himself  mentally  a  vanished  object, 
to  see  it  mentally  even  when  the  outer  perception 
is  gone ;  these  games  awaken  and  practise  the 
power  of  re-presenting,  of  remembering,  of  holding 
fast  in  remembrance  an  object  formerly  present, 
of  again  thinking  of  it;  that  is,  they  foster  the 
memory." — P.,  p.  57. 

♦  Die   Ausbildung  der   verschiedenen   Richtungen    der   Geisteskraft 

des  Kindes. 


20        FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

So  even  the  infant  is  to  think,  and  the  progress  is 
well  described  in  the  Mother  Plays  as 

"from  experience  of  a  thing,  joined  with  thought 
about  it,  up  to  pure  thought." — M.,  p.  121. 
In  a  lecture*  given  many  years  ago,  Dr.  Ward 
sought  to  drive  home  to  teachers  the  futility  of  this 
hard  and  fast  line  between  sense  training  and  training 
to  think.  And  there  are  some  interesting  parallels 
between  Dr.  Ward's  metaphors  here  and  Froebel's 
writing  in  "The  Education  of  Man."  Dr.  Ward  said  : 
"  Training  of  the  senses,  as  it  is  not  very  happily 
called,  is,  if  it  is  anything,  so  much  intellectual  exercise. 
.  .  .  And  nothing  can  be  more  absurd  than  to  suppose 
it  is  not  necessary.  .  .  .  By  a  judicious  training  in 
observation  you  begin  to  make  a  child  think  when  it 
is  five  years  old.  ...  If  a  child  is  to  think  to  any 
purpose,  he  must  think  as  he  goes  on ;  as  soon  as  the 
material  he  has  gathered  begins  to  oppress  him  he 
must  think  it  into  shape,  or  it  will  tend  to  smother 
intellectual  life  at  its  dawn,  as  a  bee  is  drowned  in 
its  own  honey,  for  want  of  cells  in  which  to  store  it." 
It  is  in  describing  how  the  little  child  collects  pebbles, 
twigs,  leaves,  etc.,  that  Froebel  writes  : 

"  The  child  loves  all  things  that  enter  his  small 

horizon  and  extend  his  little  world.     To  him  the 

least  thing  is  a  new  discovery ;    but  it  must  not 

come   dead   into    the    little    world,    nor    lie    dead 

therein,    lest   it    obscure   the    small    horizon    and 

crush  the  little  world.  ...  It  is  the  longing  for 

interpretation  that   urges   the  child   to  appeal  to 

us   .    .    .   the   intense  desire   for   this   that    urges 

him  to  bring  his  treasures  to .  us  and  lay  them 

in  our  laps." — E.  p.  73. 

The  help  we  are  told  to  give  at  first  is  merely  to 

supply  the  child  with  a  name,  for  "through  the  name 

*  "Journal  of  Education."   Reprinted  in  "Child  Life,"  January,  1901. 


ANALYSIS  OF  MIND  21 

the  form  is  retained  in  memory  and  defined  in  thought." 
Later  the  mother  is  told  to  provide  "encouragement 
and  help,  that  the  child  may  weave  into  a  whole  what 
he  has  found  scattered  and  parted."  As  a  type  of  the 
help  considered  necessary  we  have  : 

'"Mother,  are  the  pigeons  and  hens  birds,  for 
the  pigeons  live  in  pigeon-houses  and  the  chickens 
don't  fly  ?  '  '  Have  they  no  feathers,  child  ;  have 
they  no  wings  ?  Haven't  they  two  legs  like  all 
birds  ?  '  'Are  the  bees  and  butterflies  and  beetles 
birds,  too :  for  they  have  wings  and  fly  much  higher 
.  .  .'  'Look,  they  have  no  feathers,  they  build  no 
nests.'  "— M.,  p,  56. 

In  another  passage  Froebel  calls  it  not  only  advis- 
able but  necessary  that  the  parents,  without  being 
pedantic  or  over-anxious,  should  connect  the  child's 
doings  with  language,  because  this  "  increases  know- 
ledge, and  awakens  that  judgment  and  reflection  (die 
Urtheilskraft  und  das  Nachdenken),  to  which  man,  left 
to  Nature,  does  not  attain  sufficiently  early." — E.,p.  79. 

Giving  names,  and  helping  in  classification  is 
surely  a  sufficient  parallel  to  Dr.  Ward's  "thinking  the 
material  into  shape,"  and  just  as  the  latter  says  that 
by  such  training  you  can  "make  a  child  think"  when 
it  is  five  years  old,  so  Froebel  in  his  chapter  on  "  Man 
in  Earliest  Childhood  "  makes  his  ideal  father  "  sum 
up  his  rule  of  conduct  in  a  few  words, "  declaring  that : 
"  To  lead  children  early  to  think,  this  I  consider  the 
first  and  foremost  object  of  child-training." — E.^  p.  87. 

Froebel's  theories,  then,  cannot  be  dismissed  as 
based  on  "faculty  psychology,"  since  it  seems  clear 
that  wherever  he  found  them  his  views  on  mental 
analysis  were  very  similar  to  those  now  generally 
accepted.  It  is  more  remarkable,  however,  that  he 
should  have  modern  views  about  Conation  and  Will. 


CHAPTER  III 

Will  and  its  Early  Manifestations 

TT  is  open  to  doubt  whether  any  modern  psychologist 
has  yet  given  a  better  definition  of  fully  developed 
Will   than   that  given   by  Froebel  eighty-seven  years 
ago: 

"Will  is  the  mental  activity  of  man  ever 
consciously  proceeding  from  a  definite  point,  in  a 
definite  direction,  to  a  definite  conscious  end  and 
aim,  in  harmony  with  the  whole  nature  of 
humanity." — E.,  p.  96. 

With  this  definition  compare  what  Professor  Stout 
has  to  say  : 

"In  its  most  complex  developments,  mental  activity 
takes  the  form  of  self-conscious  and  deliberate  volition, 
in  which  the  starting-point  is  the  idea  of  an  end  to  be 
attained,  and  the  desire  to  attain  it ;  and  the  goal  is 
the  realization  of  this  end,  by  the  production  of  a  long 
series  of  changes  in  the  external  world  ...  it  belongs 
to  the  essence  of  will,  not  merely  to  be  directed  towards 
an  end,  but  to  ideally  anticipate  this  and  consciously 
aim  at  it."* 

Between  these  two  definitions  the  difference  is  in 
the  omission  in  Froebel' s  definition  of  any  mention  of 
desire,  and  this  is  supplied  a  little  later,  when,  having 
stated    that    "  by   school    here   is   meant   neither   the 

*  "Analytic  Psychology,"  Vol.  I,  p.  152  el  seq. 


WILL  AND  ITS  EARLY  MANIFESTATIONS      23 

schoolroom,  nor  school-keeping,  but  the  conscious 
communication  of  knowledge  for  a  definite  purpose, 
and  in  definite  connection,"  he  ends  up  with  : 

"By  this  knowledge,  instruction  and  the  school 
are  to  lead  man  from  desire  to  will,  from  activity 
of  will  to  firmness  of  will,  and  thus  continually 
advancing,  to  the  attainment  of  his  destiny,  of  his 
earthly  perfection." — E.,p.  139. 

Now  Professor  Stout's  whole  psychology  is  founded 
on  his  conception  of  mental  activity.  Towards  the  end 
of  his  second  volume  he  says  :  "  The  reader  is  already 
familiar  with  my  general  doctrine.  It  has  pervaded  the 
whole  treatment  of  psychological  topics  in  this  work. 
The  aim  of  the  present  chapter  is  to  present  it  in  a  more 
systematic  form,  and  to  guard  it  against  objections. 
Our  starting-point  lies  in  the  conception  of  mental 
activity  as  the  direction  of  mental  process  towards 
an  end." 

It  is  distinctly  significant,  therefore,  to  find  how 
closely  Froebel's  ideas  on  the  subject  resemble  Professor 
Stout's  conception  of  mental  activity. 

"  Conscious  process,"  writes  Professor  Stout,  "is 
in  every  moment  directed  towards  an  end,  whether 
this  end  be  distinctly  or  vaguely  recognized  by  the 
conscious  subject,  or  not  recognized  at  aU." 

Froebel  writes  : 

"  In  all  activity,  in  every  deed  of  man,  even  as 
a  child,  yes  the  very  smallest,  an  aim  is  expressed, 
a  reference  to  something,  to  the  furthering  or 
representing  of  something ;  .  .  .  thus  the  child 
strives,  even  if  unconsciously,  to  make  his  inner 
life  objective,  and  through  that  perceptible,  that 
so  he  may  become  conscious  of  it." — P.,  pp. 
237-240. 


24        FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

The  same  idea,  that  conscious  process  is  directed 
to  an  end,  though  there  may  be  no  consciousness  of 
that  end,  is  given  in  another  passage,  where  Froebel 
is  speaking  of  the  need  for  satisfying  a  child's  normal 
desire  for  playthings. 

"Very  often  the  child  seeks  for  something, 
nevertheless  he  himself  does  not  know  at  all  what 
he  seeks  ;  at  another  time  he  puts  something  away 
from  him  and  again  knows  not  why." — P.,  p.  168. 

Of  the  earliest  mental  activity  Professor  Stout 
writes  : 

"In  its  earliest  and  simplest  form,  mental  activity 
consists  in  those  simple  reactions  which  without  being 
determined  by  any  definite  idea  of  an  end  to  be  realized, 
tend  on  the  whole  to  the  maintenance  of  immediate 
pleasure  and  the  avoidance  of  immediate  pain." 

The  movements  of  the  organism  at  this  earliest 
stage  "seem  primarily  adapted  to  the  conservation 
and  furtherance  of  vital  process  in  general."* 

Froebel  speaks  of  the  child's  efforts  : 

"to  put  far  from  him  that  which  is  opposed  to  the 
needs  of  his  life  and  yet  would  break  in  upon  it." 
—P.,  p.  167. 

He  tells  the  mother  that,  in  the  first  stages  at  least, 
the  restlessness  and  tears  of  the  infant  will  warn  her  of 
the  presence  of  anything  in  his  surroundings  hurtful  to 
his  development,  while  his  laughter  and  movements  of 
pleasure  will  show  "what  according  to  the  feeling  of 
the  child  is  suited  to  the  undisturbed  development  of 
his  life  as  an  immature  human  being." 

Mr.  Stout  goes  on  to  say  that  such  simple  re- 
actions are  adapted  "secondarily  and  by  way  of  neces- 

♦  "  Analytic  Psychology,"  Vol.  I,  p.  153. 


WILL  AND  ITS  EARLY  MANIFESTATIONS      25 

sary  corollary  to  the  conservation  and  furtherance  of 
conscious  life."  He  tells  us  that:  "The  primary 
craving  with  which  the  education  of  the  senses  begins, 
so  far  as  it  does  not  involve  such  practical  needs  as  that 
of  food,  may  be  described  as  a  general  craving  for 
stimulation  or  excitement  .  .  .  this  conation  being  in 
the  first  instance  in  the  highest  degree  indeterminate." 
Froebel,  who  speaks  of  the  nurse  "soothing  the 
restless  child  vaguely  striving  for  definite  and  satis- 
factory outward  activity,"  tells  us  that : 

"if  his  bodily  needs  are  satisfied  and  he  feels 
himself  well  and  strong,  the  first  spontaneous 
employment  of  the  child  is  spontaneous  taking  in 
(selbstthatiges  Aufnehmen)  of  the  outer  world." 
—P.,  p.  29. 

He  writes  to  Madame  Schmidt,  the  cousin  for  whose 
assistance  he  has  begged  in  observing  children  : 

"This  spontaneous  activity  of  limb  and  vivid- 
ness of  sensation  natural  to  infancy,  and  I  may 
say  inseparable  from  it,  must  also  be  carefully 
studied."— L.,  p.  110. 

And,  in  the  Mother  Songs,  he  says  : 

"You  can  see  how  his  bodily  activity,  the 
movement  and  use  of  his  limbs,  like  the  activity 
of  his  senses,  all  turn  towards  one  point :  Life 
must  be  grasped,  experienced  and  perceived  .  .  . 
he  wants  to  appropriate  the  outer  and  to  re- 
embody  it  .  .  .  his  susceptibility  for  all  that  gives 
and  takes  up  life  will  strike  you  as  something 
that  elevates  his  life  in  every  way ;  even  as  young 
plants  and  animals  are  susceptible  to  the  faintest 
workings  of  light  and  warmth,  or  the  impressions 
of  their  environment,  however  delicate.  More- 
over, this   receptivity   is   most  closely  related   to 


26        FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

great  general  excitability   and  sensibility  (Erreg- 
barkeit,  Reizbarkeit)." — M.,  pp.  119-121. 

Froebel's  views  as  to  the  nature  both  of  early  and 
of  later  mental  activity  then  bear  a  strong  resemblance 
to  the  modern  view  as  stated  by  Professor  Stout.* 

In  searching  Froebel's  writings  to  find  what  he  has 
to  say  about  the  stages  lying  between  early  mental 
activity  and  fully  developed  will,  between  what  he  calls 
"natural  activity  of  the  will,  and  true  genuine  firmness 
of  will,"  it  soon  becomes  clear  that  it  is  impossible  to 
separate  what  is  said  about  will  development,  from 
what  is  said  about  intellectual  development.f  This  is 
a  natural  consequence  of  Froebel's  constant  insistence 
on  the  unity  of  consciousness,  and  it  is  the  position  of 
modern  psychology,  whether  written  from  the  analytic 
or  the  genetic  point  of  view.  Mr.  Irving  King  writes  : 
"The  functional  point  of  view  emphasizes  first  of  all 
the  intimate  inter-relation  of  all  forms  of  mental 
activity  and  the  impossibility  of  describing  any  one 
aspect  of  consciousness  except  with  reference  to  con- 
sciousness as  a  whole."  Professor  Stout,  in  his 
"Analytic  Psychology,"  has  a  section  entitled  "Con- 
ation and  Cognition  developed  co-incidentally,"|  while 
Froebel  says  : 

"Thought  must  form  itself  in  action,  and 
action  resolve  and  clear  itself  in  thought." — 
P.,  p.  42. 

Froebel  speaks  of  his  projected  institution  at  Helba 
as  "fundamental," 

"inasmuch  as  in  training  and  instruction  it  will  rest 
on  the  foundation  from  which  proceed  all  genuine 

*  It  is  true  that  Professor  Stout  complains  of  the  loose  way  in 
which  the  word  "  activity  "  has  been  used,  and  that  he  is  careful  to 
define  his  own  meaning,  but  Froebel  too  is  careful.     See  Appendix  I. 

t  See  also  p.  82  |  "  Analytic  Psychology,"  Vol.  II.,  p.  82. 


WILL  AND  ITS  EARLY  MANIFESTATIONS      27 

knowledge  and  all  genuine  practical  attainments  ; 
it  will  rest  on  life  itself  and  on  creative  efforts, 
on  the  union  and  interdependence  of  doing  and 
thinking,  representation  and  knowledge,  art  and 
science.  The  institution  will  base  its  work  on  the 
pupil's  personal  efforts  in  work  and  expression, 
making  these,  again,  the  foundation  of  all  genuine 
knowledge  and  culture.  Joined  with  thoughtful- 
ness,  these  efforts  become  a  direct  medium  of 
culture."— E.,  p.  38. 

Professor  Stout's  account  of  how  the  unconscious 
mental  activity  of  early  childhood  becomes  transformed 
into  the  definite  and  conscious  activity  of  fully  developed 
will  is,  stated  briefly,  something  to  this  effect.  It  is  of 
the  essence  of  conation  to  seek  its  own  satisfaction,  and 
this  is  only  possible  as  the  conation  becomes  definite. 
"Blind  craving  gives  place  to  open-eyed  desire,"  as  the 
original  conation  tends  to  define  itself.  So  "the  gradual 
acquisition  of  knowledge  through  experience  is  but 
another  expression  for  the  process  whereby  the  originally 
blind  craving  becomes  more  distinct  and  more  differ- 
entiated." The  grouping  of  cognitions  is  not  produced 
by  the  conscious  needs :  "  It  is  the  way  in  which 
the  conation  itself  grows  and  develops." 

For  this  account  we  can  find  a  wonderfully  exact 
parallel  in  one  of  Froebel's  less  well-known  papers,  that 
on  "Movement  Plays." 

"All  outer  activity  of  the  child  has  its  ultimate 
and  distinctive  foundation  in  his  inmost  nature  and 
life.  The  deepest  craving  of  this  inner  activity 
is  to  behold  itself  mirrored  in  some  outward  object. 
In  and  through  such  representation,  the  child 
himself  grasps  and  perceives  the  nature,  direction 
and  aim  of  his  own  activity,  and  learns  also  further 
to  regulate  and  determine  his  life,  that  is  his  activity, 


28   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

according  to  these  outward  phenomena." — • 
P.,  p.  238. 

This  craving  for  outward  representation,  by  satis- 
faction of  which  the  child  gains  knowledge  of  the  ends  of 
his  activity,  is  an  exact  equivalent  of  Stout's  blind 
craving  which  gives  place  to  open-eyed  desire  as  it 
tends  to  define  itself.  Froebel's  conclusion,  that  only  as 
this  unconscious  or  blind  craving  for  action  is  satisfied 
does  the  child  become  "  conscious  of  the  nature,  direction 
and  ends  of  his  own  activity,"  is  but  another  way  of 
stating  Professor  Stout's  conclusion,  that  the  grouping 
of  cognitions,  which  is  the  gradual  acquirement  of 
knowledge  through  experience,  is  "the  way  in  which 
the  conation  itself  grows  and  develops."  So,  cognition 
and  conation  are  developed  simultaneously,  or,  to  repeat 
Froebel's  own  phrase,  "Thought  forms  itself  in  action, 
and  action  resolves  and  clears  itself  in  thought." 

Professor  Stout  goes  on  to  say  that  in  this  defining 
process  one  conation  springs  out  of  another,  whereby 
as  one  conation  is  satisfied  and  so  comes  to  an  end, 
another  becomes  in  its  turn  the  end  of  activity.  He  takes 
as  illustration  the  child  learning  to  walk,  saying,  "The 
mental  attitude  of  the  child  learning  to  walk  is  one  of 
conscious  endeavour.  When  he  has  become  habituated 
to  the  act,  he  performs  it  without  attending  to  his 
movements,  his  mind  being  fixed  on  the  attainment 
of  other  ends."  Froebel  proceeds  in  the  same  way, 
using  the  very  same  example.  He  has  already  said 
that  at  first  the  child: 

"  cares  for  the  use  of  his  body,  his  senses  and  limbs, 
merely  for  the  sake  of  their  use  and  practice,  but 
not  for  the  sake  of  the  results  of  this  use.  He 
is  wholly  indifferent  to  this  ;  or^  rather^  he  has  as 
yet  no  idea  whatever  of  this." — P.,  p.  48. 


WILL  AND  ITS  EARLY  MANIFESTATIONS      29 

Now,  in  the  paper  on  movement,  he  goes  on : 

"  Each  sure  and  independent  movement  gives 
the  child  pleasure,  because  of  the  feeling  of  power 
which  it  arouses  in  him.  Even  simple  walking  pro- 
duces this  effect,  for  it  gives  the  child  a  threefold 
feeling,  a  threefold  consciousness  :  First,  the  con- 
sciousness that  he  moves  himself ;  secondly,  that 
he  moves  himself  from  one  place  to  another ; 
third,  that  through  this  movement  he  attains  or 
reaches  something.  .  .  .  It  is  a  well-established  fact 
that  his  first  walking  gives  the  child  pleasure  as  an 
expression  of  his  power.  To  this  pleasure^  however, 
are  soon  added  the  two  joy-bringing  perceptions  of 
coming  to  something,  and  of  being  able  to  attain 
something.  These  several  perceptions  should  all  be 
fostered  at  the  same  time.  ...  he  should  get  his 
limbs,  and  indeed  his  whole  body,  into  his  own 
power.  He  should  learn  to  use  his  bodily  strength 
and  the  activity  of  his  limbs  for  definite  purposes. 
.  .  .  The  effort  to  reach  a  particular  object  may  have 
its  source  in  the  child's  desire  to  hold  himself  firm  and 
upright  by  it,  but  we  also  observe  that  it  gives  him 
pleasure  to  be  actually  near  the  object,  to  touch  it, 
to  feel  it,  to  grasp  it,  and  perhaps  also — which  is  a 
new  phase  of  activity — to  be  able  to  move  it.  Hence 
we  see  that  the  child  when  he  has  reached  the 
desired  object,  hops  up  and  down  before  it,  and 
beats  on  it  with  his  little  arms  and  hands,  in  order, 
as  it  were,  to  assure  himself  of  the  reality  of  the 
object  and  to  notice  its  qualities.  It  is  well,  while 
the  child  is  making  these  experiments,  to  name  the 
object  and  its  parts.  The  object  of  giving  these 
names  is  not  primarily  the  development  of  the  child's 
power  of  speech,  but  to  assist  his  comprehension  of 
the  object,  its  parts  and  its  properties,  by  defining 
his  sense-impressions." — P.,  p.  241. 


80   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

Another  passage  runs  : 

"  The  present  effort  of  mankind  is  an  endeavour 
after  freer  self-development.  .  .  .  Therefore  the 
more  or  less  clear  aim  of  the  individual  is  to  attain 
to  clearness  about  himself  and  about  life,  to  compre- 
hension and  right  use  of  life,  to  both  insight  and 
accomplishment.  .  .  .  Therefore  the  educator  must 
understand  the  earliest  activity  and  encourage  the 
impulse  to  self-culture,  through  independent  doing, 
observing  and  experimenting." — P.,  p.  16. 

To  say  that  a  conation  tends  to  define  itself  is  only 
to  say  that  unconscious  ends  tend  to  be  replaced  by 
conscious  ends,  and  we  have  seen  that  both  Froebel  and 
Professor  Stout  give  unconsciousness  or  consciousness 
of  the  end,  as  the  difference  between  earlier  and  later 
forms  of  mental  activity.  Professor  Stout's  conclusion 
is  that  "apart  from  the  perpetual  germination  of  one 
conation  out  of  another,  the  characteristic  features  of 
the  mental  life  of  human  beings  would  be  inexplicable." 

Now,  to  be  conscious  of  one's  ends  or  aims  is,  in  a 
certain  sense,  to  be  self-conscious,  so  the  transition  from 
earlier  to  later  forms  of  mental  activity  is  practically 
the  development  of  self-consciousness.  It  is  interesting, 
therefore,  to  see  that  just  as  Professor  Stout  gives  as 
his  explanation  of  human  life,  the  perpetual  germination 
of  one  conation  out  of  another,  so  Froebel  gives  as  his 
explanation,  his  meaning  of  life,  the  gradual  develop- 
ment of  self-consciousness. 

Self-consciousness,  involving  true  volition,  or  self- 
determination,  is  to  Froebel  "the  end  of  man,  for 
which  he  first  ^as  planned."  It  is,  as  he  constantly 
put  it,  man's  "destination." 

"  To  become  clearly  conscious  of  all  the  con- 
ditions and  relations  in  which  and  by  means  of 


WILL  AND  ITS  EARLY  MANIFESTATIONS      31 

which  man  exists  makes  man  first  become  man  in 
consciousness  and  in  action." — P.,  p.  12. 

"  For  man  is  destined  for  consciousness,  for 
freedom,  for  self-determination." — E.,  p.  136. 

"  Self -consciousness  belongs  to  the  nature  of 
man,  is  one  with  it ;  to  become  conscious  of  itself 
is  the  first  task  in  the  life  of  the  child  as  a 
human  being,  as  it  is  the  task  of  his  whole  life." 
—P.,  p.  40. 

"Who  amongst  us,"  exclaims  Professor  Royce, 
"conceives  himself  in  his  uniqueness  except  as  the 
remote  goal  of  some  ideal  process  of  coming  to  himself 
and  of  awakening  to  the  truth  about  his  own  life  ? 
Only  an  infinite  process  can  show  me  who  I  am."  * 

Froebel  never  loses  sight  of  this.  In  his  Auto- 
biography he  tells  how  he  began  "unwillingly"  to 
write  something  in  the  album  of  a  friend  who  was 
the  owner  of  a  beautiful  farm,  and  he  concludes : 
"  Then  my  thoughts  grew  clear  and  I  continued, 
'  Thou  givest  man  bread ;  let  my  aim  be  to  give  man 
himself.'  "  That  he  verily  believed  that  the  gradual 
development  of  self-consciousness  is  the  first  task  in 
the  life  of  the  child  is  abundantly  evident.  In  the 
very  beginning  of  his  Mother  Songs  he  tells  the  mother 
to  give  her  child  something  to  push  against,  "  to  bring 
the  child  to  self-knowledge  as  soon  as  possible,"  and 
at  the  end  he  says,  "  When  a  child  or  human  being 
has  found  himself  and  has  firm  hold  over  himself,  he 
is  ready  to  walk  joyfully  through  life." 

In  "  The  First  Action  of  a  Child,"  Froebel  writes  : 

"  The  nature  of  man,  as  man,  is   that  he   is 
self-conscious,  and  this  is  stamped  with  distinct- 
ness enough  to  be  observed  in  the  quite  peculiar 
*  "  The  Conception  of  Immortality,"  p.  58. 


32        FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

character  of  childish  activity,*  in  his  impulse  to 
busy  himself  self -actively,  spontaneously :  an 
impulse  which  awakens  simultaneously  with  mind, 
and  which  is  in  harmony  with  feeling  and  per- 
ception. If  this  tendency  to  spontaneous  activity 
is  fostered,  man's  triune  nature — energy,  emotion 
and  intellect — is  satisfied." — P.,  p.  21. 

A  realization  of  what  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  calls  "the 
universal  struggle  for  self-manifestation  and  corporeal 
realization,  which  plays  so  large  a  part  in  all  activity," 
underlies  all  that  Froebel  has  to  say  of  the  progress 
from  unconscious  activity  to  self-conscious  volition. 
His  view  of  the  Universe  is  exactly  that  tentatively 
suggested  by  Professor  Lodge,  viz.  that  something  akin 
to  this  universal  struggle  "is  exhibited  in  a  region 
beyond  and  above  what  is  ordinarily  conceived  of 
as  'Nature.'  The  process  of  evolution  can  be  regarded 
as  the  gradual  unfolding  of  the  Divine  Thought  or 
Logos,  throughout  the  universe,  by  the  action  of  Spirit 
upon  matter." 

This  takes  us  out  of  the  region  of  psychology,  but 
Froebel' s  subject  was  not  psychology,  per  se,  but  child 
development,  as  a  part  of  the  whole  plan  of  evolution, 
man  being  the  most  highly  developed  of  creatures. 

The  whole  universe  is  an  expression  of  the  Divine, 
but  man  alone  can  become  conscious  of  his  origin. 

"All  things  are  destined  to  reveal  God  in  their 
external  and  transient  being.  ...  It  is  the  special 
destiny  of  man,  as  an  intelligent  and  rational  being 
to  become  conscious  of  his  divine  essence  and  to 
render  this  active,  to  reveal  it  in  his  life,  with  self- 
determination  and  freedom." — E.,  p.  2. 

*  Froebel  is  comparing  the  child  with  other  young  animals,  and 
somewhat  scornfully  refers  to  those  who,  "  notwithstanding  the 
early  manifestation  of  the  instinct  to  employ  himself,"  regard  the 
human  infant  as  inferior  to  the  young  of  other  animals. 


WILL  AND  ITS  EARLY  MANIFESTATIONS      33 

*'  Made  in  the  image  of  God,"  meant  to  Froebel 
self-conscious  and  self-determined.  The  relation  of  man 
to  God  is  expressed  by  Froebel  as  the  relation  of  the 
thought  to  the  thinker  ^^  could  the  thought  but  become 
conscious  of  itself."     In  a  letter  of  1843,  he  says  : 

"At  the  basis  of  the  Kindergarten  lies  an  idea 
which  serves  alike  for  all  the  interstellar  spaces, 
for  all  systems  of  the  sun  ;  the  fulfilment  of  the 
divine  will  and  the  manifestation  of  the  same. 
In  order  to  become  such  a  manifestation  of  the  divine, 
man  has  first  to  attain  the  basis  of  self-consciousness  ; 
to  which  end  serves  the  early  culture  of  the  spirit 
of  humanity  in  the  world  of  childhood." — L.,  p.  133. 

In  a  paper  entitled  "A  Second  Review  of  the  Plays," 
which  really  deals  chiefly  with  evolution,  we  read : 

"  We  must  see  clearly  the  conditions  of  develop- 
ment in  Nature  and  then  employ  them  in  life. 
Thus  only  can  we  raise  man  upon  his  own  plane, 
that  is,  the  spiritual  plane,  at  least  to  such  a 
degree  of  perfection  as  is  shown  on  their  plane 
by  the  types  of  Nature. 

"  Man — the  all-surveying — must  develop  himself 
by  gradual  growth  of  consciousness,  must  raise 
himself  eventually  to  clear  consciousness  of  the 
foundation,  conditions  and  goal  of  his  life." — 
P.,  p.  198. 

It  was  as  clear  to  Froebel  as  to  Professor  Lloyd 
Morgan  that  the  lower  animals  are  kept  from 
reaching  self -consciousness  by  the  definiteness  of  their 
instincts,*  but  to  Froebel  as  to  Browning  "  in  com- 
pleted Man  begins  anew  a  tendency  to  God."  Like 
Browning  again,  Froebel  finds  that  man  has  "  some- 
what to  cast  off,  somewhat  to  become,"  he,  too,  "  finds 
Progress  man's  distinctive  mark  alone,  not  God's,  and 
♦  See  chapter  on  Instinct. 


84   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

not    the    beasts' ;    God    is,    they  are,  man   partly  is, 
and  wholly  hopes  to  be." 

"Man  in  his  first  period  of  life  on  earth  is  to  be 
regarded  while  a  child  in  three  separate  relations, 
which  are  united  in  themselves. 

"(a)  As  a  child  of  Nature,  that  is  according  to 
his  earthly  and  natural  conditions  and  connections, 
and  in  this  relation  bound,  chained,  unconscious, 
subject  to  impulses  (als  ein  gebundenes,  gefesseltes, 
unbewusstes,  den  Trieben  unterworfenes). 

"(Z>)  As  a  child  of  God,  and  in  this  relation  as 
a  free  being,  destined  to  self-consciousness. 

"(c)  As  a  child  of  Humanity,  and  in  this  re- 
lation, as  a  being  struggling  from  bondage  toward 
freedom,  toward  consciousness." — P.,  p.  11. 

And  the  beginning  of  all  he  finds  in  "The  First 
Action  of  the  Child."  In  the  paper  to  which  he  gives 
this  title  Froebel  writes  : 

"Helplessness    and   personal    will,    a   mind   of 
one's    own,    soon    become    therefore   the   turning- 
points  of  child-life,  the   fulcrum  of  which  is  free 
spontaneous  activity,  self-employment." — P.,  p.  27. 
It  is  because  Froebel   believes  this,  that  we  hear 
so  much    of    creative    activity.    Consciousness,    which 
Meredith  calls  "  the  great  result  of  mortal  suffering," 
is  the  outcome  of  all  the  unconscious  striving. 

"  The  child,  although  unconsciously,  strives  to 
make  his  life  outwardly  objective,  and  thus  per- 
ceptible and  so  to  become  conscious  of  it." — 
P.,  p.  240. 

"  Man  only  comes  to  the  power  of  self-examina- 
tion and  self-knowledge  in  any  relation  whatever 
with  the  greatest  difficulty,  and  must  first  learn  to 
study  himself  ...  in  the  mirror  of  Nature  and  of 
all  creation." — L.,  p.  57. 


WILL  AND  ITS  EARLY  MANIFESTATIONS      35 

"  The  child  must  perceive  and  grasp  his  own 
life  in  an  objective  manifestation  before  he  can 
perceive  and  grasp  it  in  himself.  Such  mirroring 
of  the  inner  life,  such  making  of  the  inner  life 
objective,  is  essential,  for  through  it,  the  child 
comes  to  self-consciousness  and  learns  to  order, 
determine  and  master  himself." — P.,  p.  238. 

Froebel  realizes  then,  that  true  volition  is  the  out- 
come of  unconscious  striving,  that  it  can  only  come 
through  action,  and,  what  is  most  important,  through 
action  which  is  the  outcome  of  feeling,  "worthy  his 
effort."  So,  while  stating  that  the  formation  of  "  a 
pure,  strong  and  enduring  will"  is  the  main  object  of 
education,  he  takes  care  to  point  out  that  unless  the 
boy  is  allowed  to  carry  out  in  action  "  that  which  is 
within,"  ideas  which  have  appealed  to  him,  and  which 
he  has  already  made  his  own,  that  main  object  will 
not  be  easily  attainable. 

"To  raise  activity  of  will  to  firmness  of  will, 
and  so  to  arouse,  and  form  a  pure,  strong  and 
enduring  will,  for  the  representation  of  a  char- 
acteristic humanity,  is  the  chief  aim,  the  main 
object  of  the  school.  .  .  .  The  starting-point  of 
all  mental  activity  in  the  boy  should  be  energetic 
and  healthy,  the  direction  should  be  simple  and 
definite,  the  aim  certain  and  conscious,  and 
worthy  of  his  effort.  Therefore  to  raise  the 
natural  activity  of  the  will  to  true  genuine  firm- 
ness of 'will,  all  the  boy's  activities  should  have 
reference  to  the  development  and  accomplishment 
of  what  is  within  him.  Activity  of  will  proceeds 
from  activity  of  the  feelings,  and  firmness  of  will 
from  firmness  of  the  feelings,  and  where  the 
first  is  lacking,  the  second  will  be  difficult  of 
attainment." — £.,  p.  96. 


CHAPTER  IV 

Characteristics  of  the  Earliest  Consciousness 

TT  is  in  the  emphasis  he  lays  upon  the  mental  activity 
of  the  child  from  the  very  first,  that  Froebel 
approaches  so  closely  to  the  position  of  the  modern 
psychologist,  and  in  his  account  of  the  earliest  con- 
sciousness he  distinctly  resembles  Professors  Ward  and 
Stout. 

Only  to  "some  of  our  most  distinguished  modern 
psychologists"  does  Professor  Stout  attribute  a  strong 
disposition  to  recognize  in  the  elementary  processes  of 
perception  and  association,  the  rudimentary  presence 
of  these  mental  operations  which  in  their  higher  form 
we  call  reasoning  and  constructive  imagination. 
Now  Froebel  writes  : 

"  One  can  recognize  and  watch,  even  in  the  first 
stages  of  childhood,  though  only  in  their  slightest 
traces  and  tenderest  germs,  all  the  mental  activities 
which  certainly  do  not  stand  out  prominently  till 
later  life.  Say  not,  ye  parents,  How  can  such 
tendencies  lie  already  in  the  life  of  the  child  still  so 
unconscious  and  so  helpless  ?  If  they  did  not  lie 
in  it  they  could  never  be  developed  from  it  .  .  .  for 
where  there  is  not  the  germ  of  something,  this 
something  will  never  be  called  forth  and  appear. 
...  As  man  is  a  being  intended  for  increasing  self- 
consciousness,  so  shall  he  also  become  an  inferring 


THE  EARLIEST  CONSCIOUSNESS  37 

and  judging  being  (schliessendes  und  urtheilendes). 
Man  has  also  a  quite  characteristic  power  of 
imagination,  and — what  must  never  be  forgotten, 
but  continually  kept  before  the  eyes  as  important 
and  guiding — the  new-born  child  not  only  will 
become  man,  but  the  man  with  all  his  qualities, 
and  with  the  unity  of  his  being,  already  appears 
and  indeed  is  in  the  child." — P.,  pp.  30-49, 

Psychologists  in  general,  says  Professor  Stout, 
show  a  tendency,  which  he  regards  as  erroneous,  "to 
ignore  the  constructive  aspect  of  early  mental  process, 
to  recognize  mental  productiveness  only  in  complete 
and  advanced  stages  of  mental  development." 

But  Froebel,  in  speaking  of  the  mother's  play  with 
a  mere  infant,  when  the  coloured  ball  may  present  "  the 
perception  of  an  object  as  such,"  most  distinctly  states 
that  the  child's  "first  impressions,  as  it  were  the  first 
cognitions,"  come  to  him  in  these  early  plays  by 
means  of  his  own  activity,  an  activity  of  body 
emphatically,  as  we  shall  see  presently,  but  an  activity 
also  of  mind,  of  perception,  "durch  Wahrnehmen  .  .  . 
durch  dunkles  Auffassen  .  .  .  durch  Selbst-thatigkeit."* 

Froebel  uses  such  expressions  as  "the  spontaneous 
reception  "  and  even  "  the  critical  reception  of  the 
outer  world,"  just  as  Dr.  Ward,  in  refusing  to  recognize 
an  internal  sense,  says  "  the  new  facts  .  .  .  are  due  to 
our  mental  activity,  and  not  to  a  special  mode  of  what 
has  been  called  our  sensitivity." 

The  active,  rather  than  the  passive  attitude,  strikes 
Froebel   so   forcibly  that   he   calls   the  two  modes   of 

*  "  In  dem  crsten  Sinnenspiele,  kommen  also  dem  Kinde  durch 
Wahrnehmen  ii.  Schaiien,  durch  Kommen,  Bleiben  u.  Schwinden, 
durch  WechscI,  also  auch  in  gewisser  Hinsicht  durch  friihes  dunkles 
auffassen  .  .  .  somit  von  dunkler  Vcrgleichung,  die  ersten  Ein- 
driicke  der  Seele,  gleichsam  die  ersten  Erkenntnisse  zugleich  durch 
Selbst-thatigkeit,  wie  durch  die  sein  Leben  und  dessen  Forderungen 
in  sich  tragende  Mutterliebe." — P.,  p.  66. 


88   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

consciousness,    the    receiving    of,    and    reacting    upon 
impressions,  a  "double  expression." 

"The  first  voluntary  needs  of  the  child,  if  its 
bodily  needs  are  satisfied  and  it  feels  well  and 
strong,  are  observation  of  its  surroundings,  spon- 
taneous reception  of  the  outer  world  (selbstthatiges 
Aufnehmen  der  Aussenwelt)  and  play,  which  is 
spontaneous  expression,  or  acting  out  of  what  is 
within.  This  double  expression  (Diese  Doppelaus- 
serung)  of  taking  in  and  expressing  outwardly  is 
necessarily  grounded  in  its  nature,  as  in  human 
nature  in  general ;  since  the  child' s  first  earthly  destiny 
is  to  attain  by  critical  reception  (durch  priifende 
Aufnahme)  of  the  outer  world  into  itself,  by  manifold 
inward  impressions  and  outward  expressions  of  its 
inner  world,  and  by  critical  comparison  of  both, 
to  the  recognition  of  their  unity.  .  .  ." — P.,  p.  29. 

Professor  Stout  attributes  this  ignoring  by  certain 
psychologists  of  the  constructive  aspect  of  early  mental 
process  to  a  false  view  of  the  nature  both  of  association 
and  of  construction,  the  fundamental  fallacy  of  the 
associationists  lying  in  their  disposition  to  explain  the 
nature  and  existence  of  a  whole  by  reference  to  the 
nature  and  existence  of  the  parts  which  are  contained 
in  it,  so  that  "the  parts  must  be  supposed  to  pre-exist 
before  they  are  combined,  and  to  pre-exist  in  such  a 
way  that  they  need  only  to  be  in  some  manner  externally 
brought  together  or  associated  in  order  to  constitute 
the  whole  which  contains  them." 

In  like  manner  Dr.  Ward  accuses  psychologists  of 
having  "usually  represented  mental  advance  as  con- 
sisting fundamentally  in  the  combination  and  recom- 
bination of  various  elementary  units,  the  so-called 
sensations  and  primitive  movements,  or,  in  other 
words,  in  a  species  of  mental  chemistry." 


THE  EARLIEST  CONSCIOUSNESS  39 

That  Froebel  seems  to  have  avoided  the  error  thus 
pointed  out  by  those  two  psychologists,  is  surprising 
enough,  but  it  is  even  more  surprising  to  find  that 
this  is  probably  due  to  the  fact  that  his  conception 
of  the  earliest  possible  consciousness  is  very  much 
like  theirs. 

In  rejecting  "the  atomistic  view,"  Professor  Ward 
maintains  that  "  the  further  we  go  back,  the  nearer 
we  approach  to  a  total  presentation,  having  the 
character  of  one  general  continuum  in  which  differ- 
ences are  latent." 

Froebel's  account,  as  given  in  "The  Education  of 
Man,"  is  very  similar : 

"  Although  in  itself  made  up  of  the  same 
objects  and  of  the  same  organization,  the  external 
world  comes  to  the  child  at  first,  out  of  its  void, 
as  it  were,  in  misty,  formless  indistinctness,  in 
chaotic  confusion,  even  the  child  and  the  outer 
world  merge  into  one  another." — E.,  p.  40. 

This  description  reminds  us  of  Professor  James' 
picturesque  expression,  "big,  blooming,  buzzing  con- 
fusion," which  is  so  often  quoted,  but  which  does  not 
really  convey  so  true  a  picture  as  Dr.  Ward's  account, 
for  where  there  is  no  distinction  there  can  surely  be 
no  confusion.  But  a  few  pages  further  on  we  find 
Froebel  describing  the  infant  consciousness  before 
speech  begins,  as  ^^  still  an  unorganized,  undifferentiated 
unity  "  (noch  cine  ungegliederte  mannigfaltigkeitslose 
Einheit).  This  is  identical  with  the  expression  used 
by  Professor  Stout,  who,  in  speaking  of  the  stage  to 
which  he  gives  the  name  "  implicit  apprehension,"  the 
apprehension  of  an  unanalysed  whole,  uses  the  phrase 
"  distinctionless  unity."  Froebel  talks  of  the  child 
feeUng  himself  a  whole  and  "  so  also,  though  uncon- 
sciously, seeking  to  grasp  a  whole,  never  merely  a  part 


40   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

as  such,"  And  just  as  Dr.  Ward  claims  for  psychology 
as  well  as  for  biology  "  what  may  be  called  a  principle 
of  progressive  differentiation  or  specialization,"  so 
Froebel  writes  : 

"  The  child  mind  develops  according  to  the 
law  which  governs  world  development,  viz.  :  that 
of  progression  from  the  unlimited  to  the  limited, 
from  the  general  to  the  special,  from  the  whole 
to  the  part."— P.,  p.  170. 

In  this,  of  course,  lies  the  reason  for  Froebel's 
correct  apprehension  of  the  infant  mind,  he  was 
biologist  first,  and  his  mind  was  full  of  the  idea  of 
development. 

"  At  the  same  time  there  begins  in  the  child, 
as  in  the  seed-corn,  a  development  towards  com- 
plexity."—P.,  p.  172. 

"Whether  we  are  looking  at  a  seed  or  an  egg, 
whether  we  are  watching  feeling  or  thought,  what 
is  definite  proceeds  everywhere  from  what  is  in- 
definite and  this  is  the  way  in  which  your  child's 
life  is  sure  to  show  itself." — M.,  p.  121. 

Professor  Ward  goes  on  to  discuss  what  is  implied 
in  this  process  of  differentiation  or  mental  growth, 
saying  that  if  analogies  are  to  be  taken  from  the 
physical  world  at  all,  the  growth  of  a  seed  or  embryo, 
will  furnish  far  better  illustrations  of  the  unfolding  of 
the  contents  of  consciousness  than  the  building  up  of 
molecules. 

It  was  the  endeavour,  and  quaint  enough  it  seems 
to  us,  to  translate  this  psychological  truth  into  educa- 
tional practice,  that  led  Froebel  to  lay  so  much  stress 
on  the  fact  that  the  earliest  of  his  so-called  "  Gifts  " 
are  indivisible  wholes  : 


THE  EARLIEST  CONSCIOUSNESS  41 

"Let  us  place  ourselves  at  the  nursery  table, 
and  try  to  perceive  what  the  child  is  impelled  to 
do  in  the  beginning  of  his  self-employment.  Let 
us  sit  ourselves  as  unnoticed  as  possible  consider- 
ing how  the  child,  after  he  has  examined  the  self- 
contained  tangible  object  in  its  form  and  colour, 
has  moved  it  here  and  there  and  proved  its  solidity, 
how  he  then  tries  to  divide  it,  at  least  to  change 
its  form.  .  .  .  Thus  after  perception  of  the  whole, 
the  child  desires  to  see  it  separated  into  parts.  .  .  . 
Let  us  stop  at  this  significant  phenomenon  and 
try  to  discern  through  it  what  plaything  following 
on  the  self-contained  ball,  hard  and  soft,  and  the 
solid  hard  cube,  we  should  for  inner  reason  and 
without  arbitrariness  give  to  the  child." — P., 
p.  117. 

Then  come  directions  as  to  the  manner  in  which 
the  toy  is  to  be  presented: 

"in  order  to  give  the  child  the  impression  of  the 
whole  (den  Eindriick  des  Ganzen).  From  this  as 
the  first  fundamental  perception  (der  ersten  Grund- 
anschauung)  everything  proceeds  and  must  proceed."* 

Starting  from  the  conception  of  an  undifferentiated 
totality  or  objective  continuum.  Dr.  Ward  says,  "Of 
the  very  beginnings  of  this  continuum  we  can  say 
nothing,  absolute  beginnings  are  beyond  the  pale  of 
science.  Actual  presentation  consists  in  this  continuum 
being  differentiated  ;  every  differentiation  constitutes 
a  new  presentation.  Hence  the  common-place  of 
psychologists :  '  We  are  only  conscious  as  we  are 
conscious  of  change.'  "... 

As  to  absolute  beginnings,  Froebel  too  writes  that 

*  It  does  not,  however,  follow  that  this  outer  object,  or  this 
manner  of  presenting  it,  is  so  important  as  Froebel  supposed ;  see 
Chapter  IX. 


42        FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

these  are  past  finding  out,  but  he  does  so  in  order  to 
call  the  mother's  attention  to  the  importance  of  the 
very  earliest  steps  : 

"Do  not  say,  It  is  much  too  early.  .  .  .  Too 
early  ?  Do  you  know  when,  where  and  how 
your  child's  intellectual  development  begins  ? 
Can  you  tell  when  and  where  is  the  boundary 
of  existence  that  has  not  yet  begun,  and  of  its 
actual  beginning,  and  how  this  boundary  manifests 
itself  ?  "— M.,  p.  154. 

Coming  now  to  what  Froebel  has  to  say  as  to  how 
his  "  unorganized  unity  "  becomes  differentiated,  we 
shall  not  find  that  his  brief  account  differs  in  any 
really  fundamental  way  from  that  of  Professor  Ward. 
Some  of  his  expressions  have  a  very  modern  sound, 
such  as  :  "  how  the  outer  world  begins  to  divide  and 
analyse  itself"  ;  how  "  out  of  the  indefinite  outside 
and  around  the  child  comes  the  definite  "  ;  or  again 
how  the  child  gains  "  the  three  great  perceptions  of 
object,  space  and  time,  which  at  first  were  one  col- 
lective perception."  ("Die  drei  grossen  Wahrnehmungen 
von  Gegenstand,  Raum  und  Zeit ;  welche  anfangs  in 
einer  Gesammtwahrnehmung  in  dem  Kinde  ruhten.") 
—P.,  p.  37. 

Commenting  upon  the  phrase  "  We  are  only  conscious 
as  we  are  conscious  of  change,"  Dr.  Ward  remarks  that 
the  word  change  does  not  sufficiently  explain  what 
happens  in  differentiation,  for  this  implies  that  the 
increased  complexity  is  due  to  the  persistence  of  former 
changes  ;  such  persistence  being  essential  to  the  very 
idea  of  growth  or  development.  ...  At  the  same  time 
he  is  careful  to  point  out  that  neither  in  "  retentiveness  " 
nor  in  assimilation  is  there  "any  confronting  of  the  old 
with  the  new,"  any  "active  comparison."  Without 
change  of  impression  consciousness  would  be  a  blank. 


THE  EARLIEST  CONSCIOUSNESS  43 

but  "a  difference  between  presentations  is  not  at  all 
the  same  as  the  presentation  of  that  difference.  The 
former  must  precede  the  latter ;  the  latter,  which 
requires  active  comparison,  need  not  follow  ...  we  must 
recognize  objects  before  we  can  compare  them." 
Froebel  says  that : 

"All  the  development  of  the  child  has  its 
foimdation  in  almost  imperceptible  attainments 
and  perceptions  .  .  .  the  first  perceptions,  in  the 
beginning  almost  imperceptible  and  evanescent,  are 
fixed,  increased  and  clarified  by  innumerable 
repetitions,  and  hy  change." — P.,  p.  38. 

Froebel,  too,  goes  back  to  this  very  earliest  stage, 
the  stage  when  a  baby  "begins  to  notice."  He  says  that 
this  indication  of  an  intellect  (Seelenaeusserung)  begins 
when  the  child  is  a  few  weeks  old,  and  is  occasioned  at 
first  by  the  movement,  that  is  change  in  position,  of  a 
bright  object,  "in  and  by  means  of  the  motion  the  child 
first  perceives  the  object." — P.,  p.  64. 

In  another  passage  Froebel  speaks  of  change  as 
"a  dim  conception  of  sequence,  and  thus  of  dim  com- 
parison." 

*'  These  first  impressions  come  to  the  child  by 
means  of  perception  and  seeing,  and  by  means  of 
coming,  staying  and  vanishing  (of  the  ball) ;  by 
means  of  change,  thus  also,  in  a  certain  point  of 
view  by  means  of  early  dim  conceptions  of  sequence, 
of  foundation  and  result,  of  cause  and  effect,  and 
thus  of  dim  comparison." — P.,  p.  65. 

A  change  or  difference  which  does  not  imply  active 
comparison,  and  a  change  or  sequence  which  does 
imply  dim  comparison  are  not  very  far  apart,  and 
Froebel  makes  his  meaning  clearer  still  by  using  the 
words  "unconsciously  comparing"  (unbewust  ver- 
gleichend). 


44   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

"  By  this  play  his  attention  is  called  to  the 
precise  shape  of  the  cube ;  and  he  will  look  at 
it  sharply,  unconsciously  comparing  it  with  the 
hand,  to  which  his  eyes  were  first  attracted." — 
P.,  p.  84. 

Nor  does  Froebel  omit  to  notice  the  necessary  close 
connection  of  the  new  with  the  old,  which  Dr.  Ward 
emphasizes. 

"The  child  very  often  seeks  for  something 
without  at  all  knowing  what  he  seeks  ;  in  like 
manner  he  repels-  something  without  at  all  know- 
ing why.  Yet  the  child  does  not  for  this  reason 
turn  away  accidentally,  neither  does  he  seek  the 
accidental.  Generally  it  is  the  new  for  which  the 
child  seeks,  but  not  a  novelty  which  has  no  con- 
nection with  what  has  hitherto  been,  for  that, 
should  it  appear,  would  obstruct  development. 
He  seeks  the  new  which  has  developed  from  the 
old,  like  a  bud  from  a  branch.  He  seeks  a  new 
unexpected  turn,  a  new  unexpected  use  of  a 
thing,  new  unexpected  properties,  new  and  yet 
unconsciously  anticipated  development,  a  new 
unexpected  connection  with  his  life.  .  .  .  The 
child  indeed  seeks  for  the  new  that  is  outside 
of  himself,  but  not  on  account  of  its  externality. 
Really  he  is  seeking  the  new  of  which  he  feels 
premonitions  in  himself,  in  his  own  development. 
Since,  however,  he  does  not  yet  know  this,  and  so 
cannot  give  an  account  of  it,  the  child  seeks  espe- 
cially for  change,  in  order  to  gain  a  means  of  growing 
up  within  himself,  and  of  growing  forth  outwardly 
from  himself. 

"Above  all,  therefore,  it  is  the  old  within  the 
child  which  clarifies,  unfolds  and  transmutes  itself, 
thus  developing  that  which  is  new.     The  whole 


THE  EARLIEST  CONSCIOUSNESS  45 

process  takes  place  according  to  a  definite  law 
resting  in  the  child  himself,  in  his  life,  in  life  as 
such."— P.,  p.  168. 

We  have  seen  that  Froebel  draws  no  hard  and  fast  line 
between  sensation  and  thought.  On  more  than  one 
occasion,  he  does  refer  to  something  less  definite  than  a 
perception,  in  one  passage  using  the  word  "Eindruck," 
and  in  another  the  term  "  Vorentwickelung,"  translated 
by  Miss  Jarvis  as  "  preliminary  impression,"  of  which  he 
says  it  is  "to  be  raised  later,  at  the  right  time,  by  look 
and  by  word,  to  a  clear  perception." — P.,  p.  86. 

In  "  The  Education  of  Man,"  Froebel's  earlier  work 
he  deals  with  the  function  of  language,  "the  word,"  in 
differentiating  "the  misty  formless  darkness,"  the 
nothing,  the  mist. 

"At  an  early  period  there  come,  too,  on  the 
part  of  the  parents,  corresponding  words  which 
at  first  separate  the  child  from  the  outer  world, 
but  afterwards  re-unite  them.  With  the  help  of 
these  words,  these  objects  present  themselves,  at 
first  singly  and  rarely,  but  later  in  various  com- 
binations and  more  frequently  in  their  self-contained 
definite  individuality.  At  last  man — the  child — 
beholds  himself  as  a  definite  individual  object, 
wholly  distinct  from  all  others." — E.,  p.  40. 

The  function  of  the  name,  as  calling  attention  to  the 
thing,  seemed  to  Froebel  of  so  much  consequence,  that 
he  says,  "the  name  creates  the  thing  for  the  child." 
It  is  in  connection  with  the  development  of  speech  in 
the  stage  just  following  on  infancy  that  he  says  :  "Up 
to  this  stage,  the  inner  being  of  man  is  still  an  unor- 
ganized undifferentiated  unity.  With  language,  organi- 
zation sets  in." 

"This  period  is  pre-eminently  the  period  of  the 


46   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

development  of  the  faculty  of  speech.  Therefore  it 
was  indispensable  that  whatever  the  child  did 
should  be  clearly  and  definitely  designated  by  the 
word.  Every  object,  every  thing,  became  such, 
as  it  were  only  through  the  word  ;  before  it  had 
been  named,  although  the  child  might  have  seemed 
to  see  it  with  the  outer  eyes,  it  had  no  existence 
for  him.  The  name,  as  it  were,  created  the  thing 
for  the  child.— £.,  p.  90. 

"The  object  of  giving  names  is  not  primarily 
the  development  of  the  child's  power  of  speech, 
but  to  assist  his  comprehension  of  the  object,  its 
parts  and  properties,  by  defining  his  sense-impres- 
sions."—P.,  p.  242. 

Professor  Stout  also  speaks  of  the  casual  naming 
of  the  object,  by  those  around  the  child  as  "  a  means 
of  fixing  the  attention  of  the  child  on  the  object 
when  it  would  otherwise  pass  unnoticed,"  and  he 
guards  against  the  misconception  that  the  name  at 
the  outset  is  a  name  for  the  child.  He  calls  it  "  merely 
a  special  sound  associated  with  a  special  percept  in 
a  quite  casual  and  indefinite  way. 

Froebel,  too,  is  careful  when  he  says  : 

"A  definite  tone  is  to  be  connected  with  a 
definite  perception,  and  the  tone  when  heard  again 
may  recall  the  perception." 

Though  Froebel  has  little  to  say  about  the  separate 
senses,  and  what  little  he  has  is  worthless,  yet  on  the 
other  hand  he  has  a  great  deal  to  say,  especially  in 
his  later  writings,  about  the  child's  bodily  activity, 
and  the  experiences  and  perceptions  (Erfahrung — 
Wahrnehmen)  he  gains  from  it.  Indeed  he  makes  so 
much  of  this,  and  it  is  so  essentially  a  modern  way  of 
thinking  that  it  has  been  given  a  chapter  to  itself. 


CHAPTER  V 

How  Consciousness  is  Differentiated. — The  Place 

OF  Action  in  the  Development  of  Perception 

and  of  Feeling 

/^NCE  objects  have  begun  to  emerge,  differentiated 
out  of  the  formless  indistinctness,  comes  what 
Froebel  calls  the  "  sucking-in  stage,"  where  the  child 
"makes  the  external  internal." 

Here,  more  than  anywhere  perhaps,  Froebel  shows 
his  genius,  his  originality  as  a  student  of  child  psy- 
chology, in  that  he  perceived  that  this  mental  sucking- 
in  is  not  merely  a  matter  of  sense  organs,  but  that 
it  is  also  a  muscular  performance. 

Who,  before  Froebel,  understood  the  importance  of 
motor  activity  from  the  very  earliest  days,  as  a  means 
of  gaining  ideas,  or  realized  as  we  now  begin  to  do, 
that  this  is  the  true  explanation  of  the  "endless 
imitation  which  is  the  child's  vocation  "  ? 

In  speaking  of  the  "new-born  child,"  it  is  activity 
or  action  which  is  again  and  again  repeated  and 
emphasized  as  the  outstanding  characteristic,  "an 
activity  and  action  devoted  to  working  with  and 
prevailing  over  the  outer." 

"As  rest  appears  to  be  the  earliest  requirement 
of  the  bodily  life,  so  movement  soon  appears  as 
the  demand  of  the  soul  life." — P.,  p.  63. 

The  baby's  "feeble  strength"  is  to  be  drawn  into 
the  game,  where  possible,  "particularly  that  he  may 


48   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

experience  and  perceive,  directly  through  and  in  his 
own  activity"  (durch  und  in  Eigenthatigkeit  unmit- 
telbar  selbst  erfahre  und  wahrnehme). — P.,  p.  78. 

It  is  "through  spontaneous  activity,  as  well  as 
through  the  mother's  instinctive  knowledge  of  his 
needs "  that  the  child  gains  "  the  first  impressions  of 
the  soul,  as  it   were,  the  first   cognitions." 

Out  of  forty-nine  Mother  Songs,  two  only  deal 
specifically  with  the  senses,  though  all  deal  with  action, 
and  Froebel  takes  care  to  point  out  the  close  con- 
nection of  sense  and  movement. 

"Limbs  and  senses  seem  to  have  very  different 
provinces  of  activity,  and  so  they  have ;  yet 
so  deep-seated  is  their  linked  interchange  that 
neither  of  them  fails  to  react  on  the  other.  And 
no  Games  for  the  limbs  have  presented  them- 
selves to  us,  not  even  the  'Kicking  Song'  which 
have  not  also  made  demands  upon  the  sense  of 
sight."— M.,  p.  168. 

"The  use  of  the  body  and  of  the  limbs  is 
developed  simultaneously  and  in  the  same  pro- 
portion as  the  use  of  the  senses,  the  order  being 
determined  by  their  own  nature  and  the  properties 
of  the  material  world.  Outer  objects  are  near,  or 
moving  away,  or  fixed  at  a  distance,  and  either 
invite  rest,  seizure  and  holding  fast,  or  invite  him 
who  would  bring  them  nearer  to  move  towards 
them."— E.,  p.  47. 

Froebel' s  account  of  the  significance  of  the  ceaseless 
activity  of  the  young  child  anticipates  to  a  certain 
extent  that  of  Mr.  Irving  King,  who,  in  his  most 
interesting  "Psychology  of  Child  Development,"  deals 
expressly  with  "the  functional  relation  of  consciousness 
to  activity."  But  the  views  of  Professor  Stout  as 
expressed    in    his    "Anal3^ic    Psychology,"    and    with 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  PERCEPTION  AND  FEELING  49 

which  Froebel's  writing  has  already  been  compared, 
and  those  of  Mr.  Irving  King  do  not  appear  to  clash 
in  any  way. 

Mr.  King  begins  by  discussing  the  "  sort  of  conscious- 
ness" a  young  child  must  have,  and  concludes  that  it 
must  from  the  very  first  be  a  unified  consciousness, 
however  vague,  any  discreteness  being  on  the  part  of 
the  object.  He  also  states  that  the  consciousness  of  a 
human  being  must  differ  from  that  of  the  animal 
entering  life  with  many  "ready-made  complexes  of 
adjustment,"  because  "Consciousness  is  related  not  to 
activity,  but  to  the  growth  of  activity."  We  have 
just  seen  that  Froebel  too  insists  on  a  unified  con- 
sciousness, that  he  too  says  that  "  the  external 
world,"  though  composed  always  of  the  same  variety 
of  objects,  "  comes  to  the  child  as  '  an  undifferentiated 
unity.'"  Froebel  is  also  quite  sound  as  to  the  differ- 
ence between  the  mental  possibilities  of  the  animal 
"  whose  instincts,  as  they  are  called,  are  at  birth  so 
definite  and  strong,"  and  that  of  the  child  "  born  in 
the  extreme  condition  of  helplessness,"  by  whom 
"everything  external  is  to  be  overcome."* 

Reflex  and  instinctive  acts  which  the  child  brings 
into  the  world  with  him,  says  Mr.  King,  are  unconscious, 
as  are  reflex  and  habitual  activities  to  the  adult,  but 
"  the  checking  of  a  movement  must  make  the  child 
more  definitely  conscious  of  it  ...  it  is  no  longer 
mere  movement,  but  movement-stopped-by-something. 
As  soon  as  movement  stands  out,  as  soon  as  the 
consciousness  of  it  is  interwoven  with  something  that 
is  not  movement,  we  have  the  basis  for  indefinite 
advance." 

Froebel  says  the  same  thing  in  the  first  of  the 
Mother  Songs,  where  he  takes  as  the  point  of  departure 

♦  See  p.  66. 


50        FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

for  all  future  training  this  movement-stopped-by- 
something,  to  which  Mr.  King  refers  as  the  earliest 
beginning  of  consciousness.  The  mother  is  told  that 
when  her  baby  "strikes  out  with  his  small  arms,  as  he 
kicks  with  his  feet,"  it  is  a  challenge,  to  which  she 
instinctively  responds  by  giving  him  her  hand  or  her 
chest,  "against  which  he  tramples  with  alternate  feet 
and  so  measures  and  increases  his  strength."  So,  he 
reaches  "  that  first  consciousness  of  self,  which  is 
born  of  physical  opposition  to  and  connection  with 
the  external  world." — P.,  p.  171. 

Every  one  knows  that  Froebel  laid  much  stress  on 
the  necessity  for  what  is  usually  called  "expression," 
which  he  called  Darstellung — often  translated  "  represen- 
tation." One  of  his  reasons  for  this  emphasis  is,  however, 
by  no  means  always  understood,  viz.  that  it  "  induces 
clear  perception." 

It  is  in  discussing  and  criticizing  Professor  Baldwin's 
description  of  imitation  as  a  circular  process,  that 
Mr.  Irving  King  brings  out  two  points  of  view  from 
which  we  may  regard  imitation,  that  of  the  observer 
and  that  of  the  so-called  imitator.  Imitation,  he  says, 
is  a  term  for  the  observer  only,  and  not  a  term  for 
psychology  at  all.  Baldwin  says  that  "  real  or  per- 
sistent imitation  is  the  reaction  that  will  reproduce 
the  stimulating  impression  and  so  tend  to  perpetuate 
itself."  But  as  Mr.  King  shows  in  the  case  of  the 
child  who  imitates  his  mother's  poking  of  the  fire, 
"  the  response  of  the  child  to  the  copy  does  not  rein- 
state the  original  stimulus.  .  .  .  What  the  child  gets 
is  not  a  reproduced  stimulus,  but  a  new  experience.'* 

In  "  The  Education  of  Man,"  written  years  before 
his  whole  attention  was  given  to  the  young  child, 
Froebel  had  emphasized  the  necessity  for  "repre- 
sentation" which  "induces  and  impUes  clear  percep- 
tion." 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  PERCEPTION  AND  FEELING  51 

"For  what  man  tries  to  represent  or  do,  that 
he  begins  to  understand." — E.  p.  76. 

As  we  have  seen  that  Froebel  sets  before  him- 
self the  self-same  task  which  Mr.  King  states  as  the 
business  of  the  genetic  psychologist,  so  it  should  be 
no  surprise  that  he  gives  virtually  the  same  answer  to 
the  question  :  What  do  the  imitative  activities  mean 
to  the  child  ? 

Mr.  King's  answer  is  that  the  child's  emphasis  is 
not  on  the  copying  of  a  certain  act,  but  on  the  attain- 
ment of  a  certain  experience  that  comes  through  the 
copying  or  imitating.  "  The  child,"  he  says,  "  is 
seldom  or  never  imitating  from  his  own  point  of 
view,  but  is  always  trying  to  sort  out  some  of  his 
own  ill-organized  experiences." 

Froebel' s  words  are  : 

"  The  child,  though  unconsciously,  strives  to 
make  his  inner  life  outwardly  objective  and  thus 
perceptible,  and  so  to  become  conscious  of  it,  to 
see  it  mirrored  in  the  outward  phenomena.  It 
is  for  this  reason  that  the  child  tries  to  do  himself 
whatever  he  sees  done." — P.,  p.  240. 

"  If  your  child  is  to  understand  any  action,  you 
must  let  him  carry  it  out  himself,  deeply  rooted 
in  this  fact  is  his  prompt  and  delighted  imitation 
of  whatever  he  finds  around  him." — M.,  p.  16. 

"  Thought  must  form  itself  in  action,  and  action 
resolve  and  clear  itself  in  thought." — P.,  p.  42. 

Every  stimulus,  says  Mr.  King,  is  a  suggestion  to 
activity,  and  it  is  interesting  to  notice  how  two  minds 
working  on  the  same  lines,  though  separated  not  only 
by  years  but  by  difference  of  language,  can  fall  into 
almost  the  same  phrases.    Mr.  King  unconsciously  uses 


52   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

almost  Froebel's  very  words  when  he  writes  :    "  The 
sight  of  the  object  tends  to  set  the  activity  free." 
Froebel  writes  : 

"As  the  ball  stirs,  moves,  goes,  runs  and  rolls, 
the  child  who  is  playing  with  it  begins  to  feel  the 
desire  to  do  likewise.  .  .  .  The  smallest  child  moves 
joyfully,  springs  gaily,  hops  up  and  down  or  beats 
with  his  arms  when  he  sees  a  moving  object.  This 
is  not  merely  delight  in  the  movement  of  the  object 
before  him,  but  it  is  the  working  of  the  inner 
activity  wakened  in  him  by  the  sight  of  outer 
activity.  Through  such  vision  the  inner  life  has 
been  freed."— P.,  p.  239. 

We  have  seen  that  according  to  Froebel  the 
earliest  consciousness  is  a  kind  of  self-consciousness. 
Mr.  Irving  King  says  that  the  very  beginning  of 
consciousness  is  "  movement-stopped-by-something," 
and  Froebel  says  that  when  the  baby  kicks  out 
or  tramples  with  his  feet  and  the  mother  responds 
by  giving  him  her  hand  or  chest  to  push  against, 
the  child  reaches  that  "  first  consciousness  of  self 
which  is  born  of  physical  opposition  to  and  con- 
nection with  the  external  world."  Here  again  we 
come  to  a  point  in  which  Froebel's  insight  shows 
well  in  comparison  with  a  typical  modern  genetic 
psychologist.  "Many  writers,"  says  Mr.  Irving  King, 
"have  tried  to  select  out  certain  kinds  of  activity  as 
peculiarly  connected  with  the  development  of  the 
infant's  sense  of  self."  Preyer,  for  instance,  connects 
this  development  specially  with  painful  sensations ; 
Baldwin,  with  experience  associated  with  people,  as 
contrasted  with  experience  of  things.  His  own  con- 
clusion is  that  "  it  seems  more  correct  to  say  that 
all  the  child's  activities  are  factors  of  very  nearly 
equal   importance  for  developing  the  sense  of  self,  as 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  PERCEPTION  AND  FEELING  53 

distinct  from  things  and  other  people,  and  it  is  this 
view  that  we  find  in  Froebel's  writings.  Even  in 
"  The  Education  of  Man"  we  find  : 

"If  man,  in  accordance  with  his  destiny,  is 
truly  and  thoroughly  to  know  each  thing  of  the 
surrounding  world  ;  if  with  the  aid  of  each  thing 
he  is  truly  and  thoroughly  to  know  himself.  .  .  ." — 
E.,  p.  92. 

And  among  his  later  writings,  in  connection  with  the 
child's  play  with  bricks  Froebel  says  : 

"True  and  early  knowledge  of  Nature  and  of 
the  outer  world  and  especially  clear  self-knowledge 
come  to  the  child  by  this  early  dismembering  and 
reconstruction  and  perception  of  real  things,  though 
not  as  yet,  by  any  means,  through  verbal  desig- 
nation of  the  various  productions  of  childish 
activity." — P.,  p.  123. 

"Self-consciousness,"  says  Mr.  King,  "is  essentially 
a  relative  and  variable  term  for  all  of  us.  It  stands  for 
a  process  of  definition,  that,  strictly  speaking,  proceeds 
till  maturity,  or  even  later."  And  Froebel,  writing 
about  how,  through  the  mother's  play  with  a  ball, 
a  child  may  gain  his  earliest  perceptions  of  object, 
space  and  time,  says  that  by  the  coming  and  going 
of  the  ball,  etc., 

"there  goes  forth  to  the  child  the  object,  recognized 
as  such  by  the  mind  and  so  held  fast,  the  conscious- 
ness of  the  object,  and  so  consciousness  itself 
awakens  in  the  child." 

And  without  a  pause  he  goes  on  : 

"Self-consciousness  belongs  to  the  nature  of 
man,  and  is  one  with  it.  To  become  conscious  of 
itself  is  the  first  task  in  the  life  of  the  child,  as 
it  is  the  task  of  the  whole  life  of  man.     That  this 


54   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

task  may  be  accomplished  the  child  is,  even  from 
his  first  appearance,  surrounded  by  a  definite 
place  and  by  objects:  by  the  air  blowing  around 
all  living  creatures,  as  well  as  by  the  arousing, 
human,  spiritual  language  of  words.  .  .  .  Thus  it 
is  with  the  attainment  of  man  to  consciousness 
and  the  speech  required  and  conditioned  by  that 
attainment  to  consciousness." — P.,  p.  39. 

It  is  rather  interesting  to  notice  that  in  her  trans- 
lation of  this  passage  in  which  Froebel  declares  that 
self-consciousness  comes  to  a  child  as  a  result  of  all  his 
surroundings.  Miss  Jarvis  omits  the  word  "self."  She 
begins  her  paragraph  with  "  Bewusstsein,"  instead  of 
"  Selbstbewusstsein  "  as  it  stands  in  the  original.  To 
quote  Mr.  King,  "It  is  generally  held  that  these  are 
two  distinct  attitudes,  that  consciousness  may  exist 
without  an  accompanying  consciousness  of  the  self  as 
separate  from  the  objects,  activities  and  persons  of  the 
rest  of  the  world."  Probably  this  was  Miss  Jarvis's 
own  view,  and  she  left  out  the  word  "self"  as  having 
no  place  or  meaning  in  the  context.  It  was,  however, 
not  meaningless  to  Froebel  himself. 

Mr.  King  continues  :  "  The  really  important  point 
is  not  to  be  able  to  put  the  finger  down  on  some  one 
thing  that  proves  a  developed  self-consciousness,  but 
to  be  able  to  show  at  every  point  that  the  process 
of  definition  is  a  function  of  the  growing  complexity  of 
the  child's  activities."  And,  in  "The  First  Action 
of  a  Child"  Froebel  writes: 

"  The  nature  of  man  as  a  being  intended  for 
self-consciousness,  shows  itself  in  the  quite  dis- 
tinctive nature  of  the  child's  activity,  even  at  the 
end  of  the  so-called  three  months'  slumber,  in  the 
totality  of  the  first  childish  action.  This  cannot 
be  better  comprehended  than  by  the  expression 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  PERCEPTION  AND  FEELING  55 

'to  busy  himself  (sich  beschaftigen)  in  the  impulse 
of  the  child — an  impulse  awakening  simultaneously 
with  his  inner  life — an  impulse  in  close  union  with 
feeling  and  perception,  to  be  active  for  the  increas- 
ing development  of  his  life:  in  this  Ues  the  nature 
of  man  as  a  being  intended  to  grow  towards  and 
ultimately  to  become  self-conscious." — P.,  p.  22. 

Speaking  of  his  second  plaything,  intended  for  a 
child  six  months  old,  he  says : 

"And  so  his  play,  and  through  his  play,  his 
surroundings — finally  Nature  and  Universe — may 
become  a  mirror  of  himself  and  of  his  life.  But 
this  cannot  be  too  early  facilitated,  that  the  child 
at  once,  from  the  first  beginning  of  his  self- 
developing  feeling  of  life,  may  grow  up  in  exchange 
and  comparison  with  Nature  and  life,  and  as  he 
impresses  his  life  in  form,  and  as  form  on  things 
outside,  so  he  may  again  perceive  his  life  therein." 
—P.,  p.  95. 

Froebel  was  bound  to  watch  for  early  developments 
of  self-consciousness,  because  his  whole  philosophy  and 
pedagogy  are  based  on  his  firm  belief  that  while  every- 
thing in  the  universe  is  an  expression  of  the  Divine, 
man  alone  is  "destined"  to  express  the  God  within 
"with  self-determination."  So,  of  the  little  child,  he 
writes  : 

"Because  the  child  himself  begins  to  represent 
his  inner  being  outwardly,  he  imputes  the  same 
activity  to  all  about  him,  to  the  pebble  and  chip 
of  wood,  to  the  plant,  the  flower,  and  the  animal. 
And  thus  there  is  developed  in  the  child  at  this 
stage  his  own  life,  his  life  with  parents  and  family, 
and  particularly  his  life  in  and  with  Nature,  as  if 
this  held  life  like  that  which  he  feels  within  himself." 
—E.,  p.  54. 


56   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

As  the  child  grows  older,  the  mother,  Froebel 
continues,  tries  to  teach  him  to  feel  the  complexity  of 
his  own  body,  "Give  me  your  arm,"  "Where  is  your 
hand?"  she  says,  and  she  "playfully  leads  him  to  a 
knowledge  of  the  members  which  he  cannot  see,"  and 
the  passage  ends  : 

"The  aim  of  all  this  is  to  lead  the  child  to  self- 
consciousness,  to  reflection  about  himself  in  the 
approaching  period  of  boyhood.  Thus,  a  boy  ten 
years  old,  similarly  guided  by  instinct,  believing 
himself  unobserved,  soliloquized  :  '  I  am  not  my 
arm,  nor  my  ear  ;  all  my  limbs  and  organs  I  can 
separate  from  myself,  and  I  still  remain  myself; 
I  wonder  what  I  am  ;  who  and  what  is  this  which 
I  call  myself  ?  '  "—E.,  p.  56. 

Nor  does  Froebel  forget  the  idea  of  the  self  as  the 
boy  grows  older. 

Once  the  activities  of  running,  jumping,  etc.,  are 
familiar,  the  boy's  play  takes  on  a  new  complexion. 
His  games  are  now  "trials  of  strength,"  or  "displays 
of  strength." 

"  The  boy  tries  to  see  himself  in  his  companions, 
to  feel  himself  in  them,  to  weigh  and  measure 
himself  by  them,  to  know  and  find  himself  by  their 
aid."— S.,  p.  114. 

"  The  life  of  the  boy  has,  indeed,  no  other 
purpose  but  that  of  the  outer  representation  of 
his  self  :  his  life  is  in  truth  but  an  external  repre- 
sentation of  his  inner  being,  of  his  power,  particu- 
larly through  plastic  material.  In  the  forms  he 
fashions,  he  does  not  see  outer  forms  which  he 
is  to  take  in  and  understand  ;  he  sees  in  them 
the  expression  of  his  spirit,  of  the  activities  of 
his  own  mind." — E.,  p.  279. 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  PERCEPTION  AND  FEELING  57 

Surely  it  is  another  touch  of  genius  that  makes 
Froebel  spring  to  the  nascent  idea  of  self  as  the  reason 
for  the  child's  craving  for  tales  of  all  kinds. 

"Knowledge  of  a  thing  can  never  be  attained 
by  comparing  it  with  itself.  Therefore  the  boy 
cannot  attain  any  knowledge  of  the  nature  and 
meaning  of  his  own  life,  by  comparing  it  with 
itself  .  .  .  everybody  knows  that  comparisons  with 
somewhat  remote  objects  are  more  effective  than 
those  with  very  near  objects.  Only  the  study  of 
the  life  of  others  can  furnish  such  points  of  com- 
parison with  the  life  he  has  himself  experienced. 
...  It  is  the  innermost  desire  and  need  of  a 
vigorous  boy  to  understand  his  own  life.  .  .  .  This 
is  the  chief  reason  why  boys  are  so  fond  of  stories, 
legends  and  tales.  .  .  .  The  story  concerns  other 
men,  other  circumstances,  other  times  and  places, 
yet  the  hearer  seeks  his  own  image,  he  beholds  it, 
and  no  one  knows  that  he  sees  it." — E.,  p.  305. 

As  Froebel  shows  so  much  insight  into  the 
paramount  importance  of  action  in  the  development  of 
self-consciousness,  it  is  not  surprising  to  find  that  he 
recognizes  also  its  special  importance  in  the  development 
of  feeling. 

It  is  probably  to  the  late  Professor  James  and  his 
sparkling  paradoxes  that  the  educational  world  owes 
its  grasp  of  the  importance  of  expression  in  connection 
with  feeling ;  we  feel  because  we  act,  we  are  told,  we  do 
not  run  away  because  we  are  afraid,  but  we  are  afraid 
because  we  have  run  away.  But  all  Froebelians  had 
already  learnt  the  truth  at  the  bottom  of  this  from 
Froebel' s  Mother  Songs. 

When  he  wrote  his  earliest  and  greatest  book,  "  The 
Education  of  Man,"  Froebel  was  already  far  enough 
advanced  to  point  out  the  necessity  for  at  least  verbal 


58   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

expression  of  feeling.  He  then  advocated  giving  to 
young  boys  simple  prayers  or  words  by  which  they 
can  express  childish  gratitude  for  care  and  protection, 
so  that  these  feelings  may  be  retained  and  deepened. 

"It  is  natural  that  religious  feelings  and 
thoughts  should  spring  up.  ...  In  the  beginning 
these  sentiments  and  feelings  will  only  manifest 
themselves  as  an  effect,  a  fullness  without  word 
or  form,  without  any  adequate  expression  of  what 
they  are,  merely  as  something  that  uplifts  our 
being  and  fills  the  soul.  At  this  juncture,  it  is 
most  beneficial,  strengthening,  and  uplifting  for 
the  boy  to  receive  words — a  language  for  these 
sentiments  and  feelings — so  that  they  may  not  be 
stifled  in  themselves,  vanish  for  lack  of  expression." 
—E.,  p.  246. 

The  same  remark  is  made  in  connection  with  the 
teaching  of  poems  and  songs.  When  feeling  is  aroused 
by  the  contemplation  of  Nature,  it  must  be  expressed. 
When  Spring  brings  "gladness,"  and  Autumn  "longing 
and  hope,"  and  when  Winter  awakens  "courage  and 
vigour,"  then: 

"Man,  too,  would  express  the  thoughts  and 
feelings  that  are  awakened  in  him  and  for  which 
he  cannot  find  words,  and  these  should  be  given 
him.  .  .  .  the  thoughtful  teacher  can  easily  inter- 
pret the  thoughts  and  feelings  of  the  boys,  as  well 
as  the  phases  of  Nature,  in  living  fitting  words. 
...  In  general,  all  that  was  said  concerning 
the  appropriation  of  religious  expressions  is  true 
here."— E.,  p.  267. 

Froebel  had  also  noted  even  thus  early  how  "  the 
natural  mother "  from  the  very  beginning  cultivates 
feeling  through  expression,  through  gesture  or  action. 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  PERCEPTION  AND  FEELING  59 

"  Mother  love  seeks  to  awaken  and  to  inter- 
pret the  feeling  of  community  between  the  child 
and  the  father,  brother  and  sister,  when  she  says, 
'  Dear  Daddy ! '  as  she  caressingly  passes  the 
child's  hand  over  the  father's  cheek.  '  Love 
daddy,  love  little  sister,'  etc." — E.,  p.  69. 

In  the  Mother's  Songs,  written  much  later  and  after 
Froebel  had  made  careful  observation  of  young  children, 
he  is  more  emphatic,  and  his  ideas  of  expression  are 
both  wider  and  more  definite.  In  "  The  Education  of 
Man"  he  had  said  that  literature  exercises  and  tests 
judgment  and  feelings,  and  he  had  added  that  this 
should  be  followed  up  by  some  constructive  action. 
But  now  he  knows  that  feeling  when  stirred  ought  to 
express  itself  in  actual  service,  just  as  James  suggests 
"speaking  genially  to  one's  grandmother,  or  giving  up 
one's  seat  in  a  horse  car,  if  nothing  more  heroic  offers." 

The  mother  is  told  that  at  first  she  should  help 
her  little  one  to  understand  her  care  of  him  and  his 
dependence  on  her  by  "the  looking-glass  of  outer  life," 
by  letting  him,  for  instance,  watch  the  hen  caring  for 
her  chickens,  and  the  parent  birds  feeding  and  brooding 
over  their  young  in  the  nest.  In  the  rhymed  motto 
of  "The  Nest"  she  is  told  : 

"  Already  the  baby  likes  to  see  pictures  showing 
the  loving  care  of  a  mother.  Let  him  do  so  often, 
that  his  life  experience  may  become  clear  to  him." 

But  the  longer  explanation  has  an  important 
addition  : 

"  The  way  lies  through  our  imaginative,  tender 
and  emotional  observation  of  Nature  and  of  man's 
life,  and  through  the  child's  affectionately  taking 
their  most  intimate  meaning  into  the  life  of  his 
own  heart,  and  expressing  by  representation  what  he 
thus  takes  in." — M.,  p.  149. 


60   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

So,  as  the  child  begins  to  realize  what  he  owes, 
comes  the  next  little  play,  "The  Flower  Basket,"  the 
keynote  of  which  is  given  in  its  motto  : 

"Try  to  let  the  child  give  outward  form  to 
what  stirs  his  feelings,  for  the  love  even  of  a  child 
dies  away  if  not  carefully  fostered." — M.,  p.  38. 

And  the  baby  makes  of  his  tiny  hands  a  basket  for 
flowers  wherewith  to  celebrate  the  father's  birthday  in 
orthodox  German  fashion.  In  Froebel's  own  phrase, 
the  "inner  meaning"  of  the  little  finger  play  with  its 
picture,  is  "to  cherish  thoughtfully  the  bond,  which  is 
invisible,  yet  which  can  be  felt,  whereby  the  life  of 
humanity  is  bound  together,  the  first  opportunity  for 
which  is  afforded  by  the  life  of  the  child  and  the  family." 
What  is  important  here  is  that  Froebel  has  pointed 
out  the  way  in  which  this  bond  can  be  strengthened, 
that  is  by  expression,  by  giving  "  outward  form  to 
what  stirs  feeling." 

This  idea  of  service  as  expression  of  feeling  comes 
into  Froebel's  description  of  the  ideal  child,  "merry, 
happy,  strong  and  busy,"  when  the  mother: 

"Kissed  upon  his  brow  her  blessing, 
Then,  his  love  for  her  expressing. 
Off  he  starts  his  mother  serving 
All  he  can  do,  she's  deserving." — M.,  p.  191. 

Again,  in  connection  with  childish  productions, 
the  little  baskets,  napkin  rings,  etc.,  that  they  have 
made,  Froebel  wrote  : 

"  The  use  made  of  these  little  productions  is 
very  important  to  the  civilizing  and  nourishing  of 
the  child's  being  and  mind,  for  I  consider  the  fact 
that  many  children  receive  so  much  and  can  give 
hardly  anything  to  be  one  of  the  most  essential 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  PERCEPTION  AND  FEELING  61 

causes  of  the  frequent  retrogression  of  childish 
love  and  sensibility." 

Froebel  always  emphasizes  the  essential  importance 
of  family  bonds  in  the  development  of  feeling,  and  he 
not  only  instructs  the  mother  to  see  to  it  that  the  child 
recognizes  the  family  circle,  but  he  tells  her  that  he 
will  realize  his  "kinship"  by  service  done  for  the 
family. 

"  Family,  family,  you  are  more  than  School 
or  Church  .  .  .  without  you  what  are  Altar  and 
Church.  .  .  r—M.,  p.  159. 

"That  many  things  are  in  a  whole 
Soon  dawns  upon  a  childish  soul. 
Then  let  the  mother  teach  him  carefully 
To  know  the  circle  of  the  family." 

—M.,  p.  46. 

"Duties  are  not  burdens,  duty  fulfilled  leads  to 
light,  this  is  why  every  healthy  child  likes  and 
enjoys  doing  duties,  provided  they  speak  to  him 
clearly  and  simply,  above  all  inexorably.  .  .  .  See 
how  happy  a  child  is  feeling  he  has  done  his 
small  duties.  He  already  feels  his  kinship  with 
you  thereby.  Cherish  this  feeling,  and  it  will  be 
salvation  and  blessing  to  him." — M.,  p.  174. 

As  the  feeling  of  the  adult  is  called  out  by  the 
helplessness  of  a  child,  so,  too  : 

"  the  child's  sympathy  is  roused  by  the  young 
creatures'  necessities  more  than  by  anything  else, 
and  among  these  chiefly  by  their  nakedness  and 
softness  :  ' .  .  .  Mother,  the  poor  little  birds  are 
so  lonely,  I  am  so  sorry  for  the  poor  little  things.'  " 
— M.,  p.  150. 

And  in  this  connection  too  comes  the  warning  that 


62   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

feeling   must    not    be    allowed    to    evaporate    without 
action  : 

"  If  your  child's  to  love  and  cherish 
Life  that  needs  him  day  by  day, 
Give  him  things  to  tend  that  perish 
If  he  ever  stops  away." — M.,  p.  84. 

The  child  is  "to  feel  within  himself  Nature's  close 
interdependence"  : 

"  Whenever  opportunity  occurs,  make  this  inner 
dependence  of  life  clear,  visible,  impressive,  tangible 
and  perceptible  to  your  child,  even  though  it  be  in 
only  a  few  of  the  essential  links  of  this  great  chain, 
until  you  come  to  the  last  ring  that  holds  all  the 
rest,  God's  Father-love  for  all.  The  baker  cannot 
bake  if  the  miller  brings  him  no  flour,  the  miller 
can  grind  no  flour  if  the  farmer  brings  him  no  corn, 
the  field  can  yield  no  crop  if  Nature  does  not  work 
towards  it  in  harmony,  and  Nature  could  not  work 
in  harmony  if  God  had  not  placed  in  her  power  and 
material,  and  if  His  love  did  not  guide  everything 
to  its  fulfilment."— M.,  p.  148. 

And  again,  as  always,  follows  the  need  for  ex- 
pression of  some  kind.  The  children  are  not  to  be 
disturbed  while  they  "  say  grace  "  over  their  doll's 
feast. 

"It  is  no  drawing  down  of  the  sacred  into  outer 
life ;  no,  this  is  the  germ  which  gives  the  outside 
actions  of  life  the  inner  meaning  and  higher  con- 
secration, which  life  so  much  needs.  For  how  is 
your  child  to  cultivate  innocently  in  himself  a 
lively  feeling  for  what  is  holy,  if  you  will  not  grant 
that  it  takes  form  for  him  even  in  his  innocent 
games." — M.,  p.  148. 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  PERCEPTION  AND  FEELING  63 

It  may  be  as  well  before  leaving  the  subject  to 
notice  here  one  or  two  other  points  in  connection  with 
feeling  that  are  touched  upon  by  Froebel. 

Though,  as  we  have  seen*,  the  feeling  side  is  always 
kept  in  closest  connection  with  those  of  knowledge  and 
action,  yet  the  fundamental  importance  of  the 
emotional  side  is  stated  quite  distinctly.  The  child  is 
"living,  loving  and  perceiving,"  or  "creating,  feeling 
and  thinking,"  still : 

"The  cultivation  of  boyhood  rests  wholly  on 
that  of  childhood  ;  therefore  activity  and  firmness 
of  the  will  rest  upon  activity  and  firmness  of  the 
feelings  and  of  the  heart.  Where  the  latter  are 
lacking,  the  former  will  scarcely  be  attainable." — 
E,,  p.  97. 

This  is  put  more  strongly  in  connection  with  the 
child's  imitation  of  the  music  of  the  bell  note,  the 
"bim-baum"  or  "ding-dong"  sung  by  the  mother, 
while  she  swings  the  ball  to  and  fro,  which  according 
to  Froebel  "serves  the  emotional  side." 

"The  children  thus  early  and  definitely  point 
out  that  the  centre,  the  real  foundation,  the 
starting-point  of  human  development  is  the  heart 
and  the  emotions,  but  the  training  to  action  and 
thought,  the  corporeal  and  mental,  goes  on  con- 
stantly and  inseparably  by  the  side  of  it ;  and 
thought  must  form  itself  into  action,  and  action 
resolve  and  clear  itself  in  thought ;  but  both  have 
their  roots  in  the  emotional  nature." — P.,  p.  42. 

Another  point  Froebel  makes  in  this  connection, 
is  that  feeling  alone  can  awaken  feeling,  and  that  those 
who  complain  of  want  of  feeling  in  their  children  have 
probably  themselves  to  blame.     Want  of  good  feeling 

♦  See  Chapter  II. 


64   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

and  the  prevalence  among  boys  of  egotism,  unfriendli- 
ness, etc.,  is  explained  as  : 

"clearly  due  not  merely  to  the  failure  of  arousing 
at  an  early  period,  and  of  subsequently  cultivating 
in  the  child  a  feeling  of  common  sympathy,  but 
also  to  the  early  annihilation  of  this  feeling  between 
parents  and  children." — E.,  p.  122. 

The  elders  must  show  sympathy  with  the  child's 
thoughts  and  feelings,  they  must  not  rest  content  with 
caring  for  his  bodily  welfare.  If  the  child  fails  to  find 
sympathy,  for  example  in  connection  with  his  interest 
in  Nature,  if  he  "fails  to  find  the  same  feelings  among 
adults  who  suppress  his  germinating  inner  life"  then, 
says  Froebel  : 

"a  double  effect  follows,  loss  of  respect  for  the 
elder  and  a  recoil  of  the  original  anticipation." — 
E.,  p.  164. 

"Mothers  and  Fathers,  is  it  not  almost  in- 
credible how  early  the  child  appears  to  distinguish 
inner  intellectual  and  loving  gifts  from  outer  bodily 
ones,  or,  rather,  to  be  conscious  of  the  heart  and 
mind  of  the  giver  to  feel  the  giving  spirit  ?  Who 
does  not  see  this  in  the  effect  of  a  friendly  glance, 
of  a  sympathizingly  spoken  word,  of  a  tender  care 
which  often  affords  little  more  than  sympathy  and 
companionship  ?  ...  It  is  a  remarkable  fact  that 
the  mere  love  for  the  outward  person,  the  mere 
bodily  care,  does  not  satisfy  him ;  indeed,  the 
nobler  the  child  is  in  his  nature  the  less  does  he 
cling  to  the  giving  person.  Through  this  con- 
sideration we  have  found  and  recognized  what  we 
sought,  namely,  that  the  respect  and  love — yea, 
the  reverence — of  children  and  youth  are  gained 
and  secured  to  parents  in  proportion  to  what  the 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  PERCEPTION  AND  FEELING  65 

latter  are  doing  for  the  education  of  the  mental 
life  of  the  children.  ...  If  the  lively  appreciation 
of  what  has  been  done  to  cultivate  his  inner  world 
fill  the  soul  of  a  child,  then  will  true  love  and 
gratitude  towards  parents,  respect  and  veneration 
for  age,  germinate  in  the  mind  of  a  child." — P., 
p.  111. 

We  have  spoken  in  this  chapter  of  what  is  popularly 
called  the  instinct  of  imitation,  and  we  have  seen  that 
Froebel  makes  much  of  what  he  calls  the  instinct  or 
impulse  of  activity  (Thatigkeitstrieb),  or  the  instinct 
for  employment  (Beschaftigungstrieb). 

It  may  be  well  now  to  consider  what,  considering 
the  ideas  of  his  day  and  generation,  Froebel  could  find 
to  say  on  a  subject  so  important  as  the  instinctive 
activities  of  human  beings  and  of  other  animals,  con- 
cerning which  so  much  has  now  been  written  and  which, 
according  to  Professor  Dewey,  Froebel  regarded  and 
rightly  regarded  as  the  foundation-stones  of  educational 
method. 


CHAPTER  VI 

Instinct  and  Instincts 

"TPHE  older  writings  on  Instinct  are  ineffectual 
wastes  of  words,"  writes  Professor  James,  "be- 
cause their  authors  never  came  down  to  this 
simple  and  definite  idea  (that  the  nervous  system  is 
to  a  great  extent  a  pre-organized  bundle  of  re- 
actions), but  smothered  everything  in  vague  wonder 
at  the  clairvoyant  and  prophetic  power  of  animals — 
so  superior  to  anything  in  Man."* 

Froebel  was  certainly  not  in  a  position  to  know 
much  of  the  nervous  system,  but  what  he  wrote  about 
instinct  cannot  be  classed  with  these  older  writings. 
For  even  without  modern  knowledge,  he  waxes  indig- 
nant over  the  opinions  of  those  who  created  James' 
"ineffectual  wastes  of  words."  Far  from  allowing 
that  instinct  in  the  lower  animals  is  superior  to  any- 
thing in  man,  Froebel  maintains  that  the  very  weak- 
ness, indefiniteness  of  man's  instincts  or  impulses 
(Triebe)  is  a  sign  of  his  superiority. 

"  Notwithstanding  the  early  manifestation  in 
the  human  infant  of  the  impulse  to  employment 
(Beschaftegungstriebe),  much  has  been  said  from 
an  entirely  wrong  point  of  view  about  man's 
helplessness  at  birth,  and  his  slow  development 
to  independence,  which  necessitates  for  so  long  a 

*  "Principles  of  Psychology,"  Vol.  II,  p.  884. 


INSTINCT  AND  INSTINCTS  07 

period  the  care  and  help  of  the  mother.  It  has 
even  been  said,  that,  in  this  respect,  man's  posi- 
tion is  behind  and  below  that  of  other  animals. 
But  that  very  point,  which  has  been  cited  as 
evidence  of  man's  imperfection,  is  a  proof  of  his 
worth.  For  we  recognize  through  this  helpless- 
ness, that  man  is  called  to  ever  higher  self-con- 
sciousness."— P.,  p.  24. 

At  the  same  time  it  should  be  pointed  out  that 
Froebel  does  not  make  the  opposite  mistake  of  sup- 
posing that  man  has  no  instincts.  Since  he  ap- 
proached psychology  from  the  biological  side,  so  far 
as  it  could  be  known  to  him,  Froebel  was  bound  to 
have  faith  in  instinct,  in  race-habit,  in  tendencies 
which,  because  they  have  been  of  use  to  the  race,  are 
bedded  in  the  nature  of  each  individual.  It  is  to 
Froebel's  later  writings  and  especially  to  the  little 
paper,  on  "The  First  Action  of  a  Child,"  that  we 
must  turn  to  see  how  wonderfully  correct  are  his 
views  on  the  whole  question  of  instinct. 

It  may  be  better  to  give  first  the  position  of 
modem  writers  on  the  subject  by  quoting  from  the 
last  chapter  of  Professor  Lloyd  Morgan's  "Habit  and 
Instinct,"  a  clear  and  concise  passage  showing  that 
the  contrary  schools  of  thought  represented  on  the  one 
hand  by  the  Darwin  and  Romanes  and  on  the  other 
by  Professors  James  and  Wundt,  can  after  all  be 
resolved  into  a  matter  of  definition. 

"If,  then,  the  question  be  asked,  whether  man 
has  a  large  or  a  small  endowment  of  instinct,  the 
answer  will  depend  upon  the  precise  definition  of 
'instinct.*  If  we  take  congenital  definiteness  as 
characteristic  of  instinct,  we  shall  agree  with  Darwin, 
that  'the  fewness  and  the  comparative  simplicity  of 
the  instincts  of  the  higher  animals  are  remarkable  as 


68        FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

compared  with  those  of  lower  animals ; '  and  with 
Romanes  that  'instinct  plays  a  larger  part  in  the 
psychology  of  many  animals  than  it  does  in  the  psy- 
chology of  man.'  If,  on  the  other  hand,  a  broader 
definition  of  instinct  be  accepted,  so  as  to  include 
what  is  innate,  in  the  sense  before  defined,  we  shall 
agree  with  Professor  Wundt  that  human  life  is  'per- 
meated through  and  through  with  instinctive  action, 
determined  in  part,  however,  by  intelligence  and 
volition ;  '  and  shall  not  profoundly  disagree  with 
Professor  Wm.  James,  who  says  that  man  possesses 
all  the  impulses  that  they  (the  lower  animals)  have 
and  a  great  many  more  besides." 

In  Mr.  McDougall's  important  contribution  to  the 
discussion  of  human  instinct,  he  says  that  the  view 
which  is  rapidly  gaining  ground  is  that  the  gradual 
evolution  of  intelligence  "did  not  supplant  and  lead 
to  the  atrophy  of  the  instincts,  but  controlled  and 
modified  their  operation."  As  Mr.  McDougall  goes  on 
to  state  his  belief  "that  the  recognition  of  the  full 
scope  and  function  of  the  human  instincts  will  appear 
to  those  that  come  after  us  as  the  most  important 
advance  made  by  psychology  in  our  time,"  it  is  im- 
portant to  the  purpose  of  this  book,  to  make  clear  to 
what  extent  Froebel's  views  on  the  subject  approach 
those  of  modern  writers. 

Mr.  McDougall  makes  a  very  clear  distinction 
between  specific  tendencies  to  which  he  limits  the 
word  instinct,  and  non-specific  or  general  tendencies. 
Naturally  Froebel  did  not  reach  this  standpoint,  but 
he  does  seem  to  have  thought  out  his  terminology. 
He  felt  strongly  as  to  the  use  of  words  of  foreign 
origin,  and  generally  uses  '"^Trieb"  ^^  Lebenstrieb," 
"Drang^'  or  ^' Lebensdrang,"  where  we  might  use 
instinct.  But  he  does  occasionally  use  "instinct," 
notably  in  a  passage  quoted  below  "whose  impulses. 


INSTINCT  AND  INSTINCTS  69 

powers  and  abilities,  whose  instincts  as  they  are 
called"  (dessen  Lebenstriebe  Krafte  und  Anlagen, 
dessen  Instincte  wie  man  es  nennt),  where  he  seems 
to  be  feeling  about  for  the  right  expression.  Other 
words  in  constant  use  are  '' Neigung,"  ''Streben''  and 
^^ Richtung,"  probably  best  translated  by  "tendency." 
It  can  be  argued,  however,  that  to  the  word  Trieb 
Froebel  does  seem  to  have  attached  a  more  definite 
meaning,  and  his  use  of  this  word  is  certainly  limited. 

Professor  James'  account  of  instinct  begins  with 
the  statement  that  "Every  instinct  is  an  impulse,"  a 
driving  to  action,  but  the  use  of  the  words  ''Trieb" 
and  ''Drang"  makes  such  a  pronouncement  un- 
necessary to  a  German  writer,  and. if  this  root  idea  is 
not  implied  by  the  noun,  it  generally,  in  Froebel's 
writings,  makes  its  appearance  in  the  verb.  Thus  we 
frequently  read  of  "a  longing  which  drives  the  child 
to,"  etc.  (die  Sehnsucht  die  das  Kind  treibt). 

The  merest  glance  through  Froebel's  writings  is 
enough  to  show  his  belief  in  the  existence  of  instinct 
in  the  human  being.  His  references  to  it  are  constant. 
It  is  an  impulse  (Trieb)  "which  the  child  did  not  give 
himself,  which  came  without  his  will,  in  later  life  even 
against  his  will,"  but  which  "urges  to  action"  (drangt 
ihn  dazu).  It  is  a  force  so  strong,  that  it  "holds 
captive  mind  and  body."  The  child  is  described  as 
"driven  by  impulse"  (des  von  Lebensdrang  getrie- 
benen  Kindes).  The  boy  again  is  "held  captive  by 
harmless,  even  praiseworthy,  impulses"  (sogar  lobens- 
werten  Triebe),  or  "gives  himself  up  entirely  to  the 
impulses  of  his  inner  life"  (dem  Treibenden  innern 
Leben). 

In  his  earlier  work,  "The  Education  of  Man," 
Froebel  is  first  concerned  with  urging  that  the  young 
human  being,  "a  product  of  Nature,"  has  instincts 
quite   as   trustworthy   as   those   of   any   other   young 


70   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

animal,   and   the   following   eloquent   passage   is   very 
well  known  : 

"The  undisturbed  working  of  the  Divine 
Unity  is  necessarily  good,  and  this  implies  that 
the  young  human  being,  still  as  it  were  in  the 
process  of  creation,  would  seek  as  a  product  of 
Nature,  though  still  unconsciously,  yet  decidedly 
and  surely  that  which  is  in  itself  best ;  and,  more- 
over, in  a  form  wholly  adapted  to  his  condition, 
disposition,  powers  and  means.  Thus  the  duck- 
ling hastens  to  the  pond,  while  the  young 
chicken  scratches  the  ground,  and  the  young 
swallow  catches  his  food  upon  the  wing  and 
scarcely  ever  touches  the  ground.  We  grant 
space  and  time  to  young  plants  and  animals 
because  we  know  that  in  accordance  with  the 
laws  that  live  in  them  they  will  develop  properly 
and  grow  well.  Arbitrary  interference  with  their 
growth  is  avoided  because  it  is  known  that  this 
would  disturb  their  development ;  but  the  young 
human  being  is  looked  upon  as  a  piece  of  wax, 
a  lump  of  clay,  which  man  can  mould  into  what 
he  pleases.  .  .  .  Thus,  O  parents,  could  your 
children,  on  whom  you  force  in  tender  years 
forms  and  aims  against  their  nature,  thus  could 
your  children  too  unfold  in  beauty  and  develop 
in  harmony." — E.,  p.  7. 

It  is  true  that  to  Froebel  evolution  is  "the  work- 
ing of  Divine  Unity."  But  there  seems  to  be  no 
special  reason  why  this  should  invalidate  what  Froebel 
has  to  say,  any  more  than  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  should  be 
disqualified  as  a  scientist,  because  he  has  produced  a 
book  in  which  he  writes:  "Development  means  un- 
folding latent  possibilities  .  .  .  growth  and  develop- 
ment are  in  accordance  with  the  law  of  the  universe 


INSTINCT  AND  INSTINCTS  71 

.  .  .  the  law  of  the  universe  and  the  will  of  God  are 
here  regarded  as  in  some  sort  synonymous  terms." 

This  is  exactly  Froebel's  position ;    he  writes  that 

"Nature  and  man  have  their  origin  in  one 
and  the  same  eternal  Being,  and  their  develop- 
ment takes  place  in  accordance  with  the  same 
laws,  only  at  different  stages." — E.,  p.  161. 

That  Froebel  not  only  recognized  the  presence  of 
instinct  in  human  beings,  but  that  he  also  saw,  as 
Professor  Wundt  puts  it,  that  this  is  "determined  in 
parts  by  intelligence  and  volition,"  he  states  very 
plainly  : 

"Natural  instinct  and  good  example  will  do 
much,  but  here,  as  in  all  human  concerns,  one 
must  proceed  by  extension  of  knowledge,  and  by 
careful  scrutiny,  or  both  the  one  and  the  other 
may  mislead  or  be  misdirected.  Experience 
cries  aloud  to  us,  to  warn  us  of  this  danger. 
Assuredly  man  ought  not  to  neglect  his  natural 
instincts,  still  less  abandon  them,  but  he  must  ennoble 
them  through  his  intelligence,  purify  them  through  his 
reason:'— L.,  p.  222. 

"In  the  progress  of  development  three  stages 
differentiate  themselves  and  fall  apart ;  and  these 
stages  are  seen  both  in  individual  men,  and  in  the 
race  as  a  whole.     They  are : 

(1)  Unconsciousness,  the  merely  instinctive  stage  ; 

(2)  Vague  Feeling,  the  tendency  upwards  towards 
consciousness;  and 

(3)  Relatively  clear  Conscious  Intelligence. 

Everything  that  is  acquired  by  a  great  unity, 
say  by  a  family,  a  community,  a  nation,  must  in 
its  beginnings  be  acquired  by  the  single  members 


72   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

of  that  unity ;  and  further  it  will  take  them  in 
one  of  the  three  grades  of  development,  either  that 
of  mere  unconseiousness,  or  of  vague  feeling,  or  in 
the  third  and  highest  grade,  that  of  conscious 
intelligence,  so  far  as  it  has  been  maintained  by 
mankind  up  to  the  present  time." — (Letter  to 
Madame  D.  Lutkens,  dated  March,  1851.) 

It  is  in  "The  First  Action  of  a  Child"  that  we 
find  Froebel  contrasting  the  instincts  of  the  lower 
animals  with  those  of  man.  Here  curiously  enough, 
Froebel,  according  to  Professor  Stout,  is  almost  more 
correct  than  Professor  Lloyd  Morgan  himself,  whose 
statement  "that  animals  do  not  perceive  relations" 
Professor  Stout  regards  as  misleading.  His  correction 
is,  "unless  an  artificial  restriction  is  put  on  the  mean- 
ing of  the  term  relation,  this  statement  would  imply 
that  animals  cannot  perceive  the  position  of  objects 
in  space  or  their  motion.  .  .  .  Hence  we  should  say, 
not  that  the  perception  of  relation  is  deficient  in 
animals,  but  only  that  definite  perception  of  relations 
is  deficient  which  depends  on  comparison." 

Now  it  is  this  very  point  of  comparison  which 
Froebel  takes  as  the  essential  intellectual  difference 
between  the  animal  independent  from  birth  thanks  to 
fully  developed  instinct,  and  the  child  helpless  and 
apparently  inferior  at  first,  yet  destined  for  progress 
"self-active  and  free."     He  writes: 

"The  animal  whose  life  impulses,  powers  and 
abilities,  whose  instincts  as  they  are  called  (dessen 
Lebenstriebe,  Krafte  und  Anlagen,  dessen  In- 
stincte  wie  man  es  nennt)  are  at  once  so  definite 
and  strong,  that  in  natural  conditions  it  never 
fails,  indeed  cannot  fail  to  overcome  every  hin- 
drance within  its  life's  reach,  the  animal  just  on 
this  account  can  never  arrive  at  a  knowledge  of 


INSTINCT  AND  INSTINCTS  78 

its  powers,  its  qualities,  its  nature  .  .  .  for  it 
lacks  all  points  of  comparison.  It  lacks  all  points 
of  comparison,  which,  in  the  case  of  man  proceed 
from  the  fact  that  the  weakest  output  of  strength 
meets  with  obstacles  which  increase  as  the  strength 
increases,  and  which  will  only  with  difficulty  be 
conquered  or  overcome  and  annihilated. 

"It  is  quite  different  in  the  life  of  man,  in  the 
beginning  of  which  practically  nothing  can  be 
accomplished  without  help  from  without. 
Nothing  especially  can  be  accomplished  through 
a  preponderance  of  inner  power  such,  for  exam- 
ple, as  the  newly  hatched  duckling  shows  on  the 
water.  Thus  everything  external  must,  by  Man, 
with  his  preponderance  of  helplessness,  be  over- 
come as  an  obstacle  solely  through  inner  advanc- 
ing, and  outer  strengthening  and  increasing  of 
power  through  free  activity  of  the  will." — P.,  p.  25. 

With  this  passage  from  "The  First  Action  of  a 
Child"  we  can  compare  the  following  from  Stout's 
"Analytic  Psychology"  : 

"The  peculiar  feature  in  the  life  of  animals  which 
prevents  progressive  development  is  the  existence  of 
instincts  which  do  for  them  what  the  human  being 
must  do  for  himself.  Their  inherited  organization  is 
such,  that  they  perform  the  movements  adapted  to 
supply  their  needs  on  the  mere  occurrence  of  an  appro- 
priate external  stimulus.  ...  In  man,  a  blind  craving 
has  to  grope  its  way  from  darkness  into  light  in  order 
to  become  effective  ;  in  the  animal  the  means  of  satis- 
faction are  provided  ready  made  by  Nature  at  the 
outset." 

After  having  stated  that  "Every  instinct  is  an 
impulse,"  Professor  James  goes  on  to  say  that  instinct 
depends  upon   the   biological   fact    that    the    nervous 


74   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

system  is  "  a  pre-organized  bundle  of  re-actions,"  and 
that  when  impulses  block  one  another,  an  animal 
with  many  impulses,  and  whose  mind  is  elevated 
enough  to  discriminate,  "  loses  the  instinctive  de- 
meanour and  appears  to  live  a  life  of  hesitation 
and  choice,  an  intellectual  life." 

Notwithstanding  the  very  obvious  fact  that  Froebel 
could  know  but  little  of  the  nervous  system  and  its 
re-actions,  it  is  still  quite  evident  that  his  observation 
had  led  him  to  a  clear  recognition  of  the  earlier  stage, 
when  "hesitation  and  choice"  are  impossible.  The 
child,  he  says,  "acts  in  obedience  to  an  instinct  which 
holds  captive  mind  and  body,"  he  is  "incredibly 
short-sighted  in  his  obedience  to  instinct."  That  he 
also  recognized  the  beginning  of  hesitation  and  choice 
is  shown  in  his  defence  of  the  child  who  "  in  spite  of 
abandonment  to  momentary  impulse,"  may  have 
"an  intense  inner  desire  for  goodness,"  which,  "if  it 
could  be  appreciated  in  time,"  would  make  of  him  a 
good  man  {E.,  p.  125) ;  and  also  in  his  plea  for  the 
early  awakening  and  training  "of  judgment  and  of 
that  reflection  which  avoids  so  many  blunders  and 
which,  in  a  natural  way  (i.e.  without  training),  does 
not  come  to  man  sufficiently  early." — E.,  p.  79. 

"Another  source  of  boyish  faults  is  in  the 
precipitation,  want  of  caution,  indiscretion,  in  a 
word  the  thoughtlessness,  the  acting  according  to 
an  impulse  quite  blameless,  even  praiseworthy, 
which  holds  captive  all  activity  of  mind  and  body, 
but  whose  consequences  have  not  as  yet  entered 
into  his  experience,  indeed  it  has  not  yet  entered 
into  his  mind  to  define  the  consequences." — E., 
p.  122. 

Froebel  gives  from  real  life  a  few  well-chosen 
examples  of  what  the  boy  so  "incredibly  short-sighted 


INSTINCT  AND  INSTINCTS  75 

in  his  obedience  to  impulse "  may  do  ;  telling  how 
one  deliberately  aims  a  stone  at  a  window  "with 
earnest  effort  to  hit  it,  yet  without  even  saying  to 
himself  that  if  it  does  so,  the  window  must  be  broken," 
and  how  he  "stands  rooted  to  the  spot"  when  this 
happens.  Another,  a  "very  good-hearted  boy,  who 
dearly  loved  and  took  care  of  pigeons,  aimed  at  his 
neighbour's  pigeon  on  the  roof,  without  considering 
that  if  the  bullet  hit  it  the  dove  must  fall."  No 
wonder  that  he  urges  the  early  awakening  of  that 
reflection  (Nachdenken)  which  would  avoid  so  much, 
and  in  this  connection  it  must  be  remembered  too  that 
Froebel  emphasized  the  indefiniteness  of  human  in- 
stinct which  makes  comparison  possible.  It  is  also 
worth  remarking  that  Froebel  knew  that  it  is  only 
by  noting  consequences  of  actual  deeds  that  reflection 
comes,  and  this  he  shows  in  one  of  his  quaint  parallels 
between  "the  history  of  creation  and  the  development 
of  all  things." 

"Similarly  in  each  child  there  is  repeated  the 
deed  which  marks  the  beginning  of  moral  and 
human  emancipation,  of  the  dawn  of  reason — 
essentially  the  same  deed  that  marked  the  dawn 
of  reason  in  the  race  as  a  whole." — E.,  p.  41. 

It  must  have  been  a  somewhat  unorthodox  view 
in  1826,  but  some  pages  further  on  Froebel  speaks 
even  more  boldly  of  "the  fall  or — since  the  result  is 
the  same — the  ascent  of  the  mind  of  man  from  simple 
emotional  development  into  the  development  of 
externally  analytic  and  critical  reason." — E.,  p.  193. 

Professor  James  goes  on  to  state  two  other  prin- 
ciples which  make  for  non-uniformity  of  instinct. 
The  first  of  these  is  that  instincts  are  inhibited  by 
habits,  and  the  second  that  instincts  are  transitory. 

The   physiological    fact   of    "plasticity"    in    which 


76   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

these  principles  are  grounded,  was  of  course  quite  out 
of  Froebel's  ken.  Nevertheless,  the  principles  them- 
selves do  not  escape  his  shrewd  observation.  Mr. 
McDougall  points  out  that  even  acquired  habits  of 
thought  and  action,  so  important  as  springs  of  action 
in  the  developed  human  mind,  are  in  a  sense  derived 
from  and  secondary  to  instincts.  He  goes  on  to  say 
that  "in  the  absence  of  instincts  no  habits  could  be 
formed,"  so  it  is  interesting  to  find  Froebel  arguing 
that  the  phenomena  of  habit  is  a  proof  of  the  existence 
of  what  in  the  infant  he  calls  the  impulse  to  activity 
or  to  self-employment. 

"The  helplessness  of  the  new-born  human 
being  in  regard  to  all  outer  things  is  the  opposite 
of  his  future  ability — since  life  is  a  whole — to  help 
himself  through  the  enhancing  of  his  will-power. 
.  .  .  Helplessness  and  personal  will,  therefore, 
become  the  two  points  between  which  the  child's 
life  turns,  and  the  fulcrum  is  free  activity.  Here- 
in lies  for  the  educator  a  key  to  phenomena  of 
child-life  which  seem  to  contradict  each  other. 
For  out  of  the  impulse  to  activity  (Thatigkeits- 
triebe)  and  to  free  self-employment,  or  rather  out 
of  the  united  three — helplessness,  personal  will, 
and  self-employment — soon  proceed  custom  and 
habit,  often  indolence  and  too  facile  yielding. 

"Consideration  of  custom,  and  of  the  spon- 
taneous acquiring  of  habit  in  the  child,  especially 
in  regard  to  what  causes  it,  and  to  its  effect  upon 
the  child,  is  just  as  important  for  the  educator, 
as  is  the  consideration  and  guidance  of  his  instinct 
of  activity.  This  very  phenomenon  that  the  child 
so  early  accustoms  and  inures  himself  to  some- 
thing, this  early  phenomenon  of  child  life,  the 
growing  together  and  becoming  one,  as  it  were, 


INSTINCT  AND  INSTINCTS  77 

with  his  surroundings,  is  a  proof  of  the  existence 
and  inner  working,  even  thus  early,  of  the  impulse 
for  activity  or  employment,  even  where  the  child 
appears  outwardly  inactive  and  passive  :  in  that 
the  child  accommodates  himself  to  outer  sur- 
roundings, relations  and  requirements  in  order  to 
provide  more  scope  for  his  inner  activity." — P., 
p.  27. 

This  proof  may  not  be  quite  so  clear  to  others  as 
it  was  to  Froebel,  but  at  least  the  passage  shows  the 
close  connection  in  his  mind  between  instinct — the 
impulse  towards  activity  and  employment — and  habit, 
and  that  he  had  noted  the  interaction  between  the  two. 

There  are  many  references  to  the  transitory  nature 
of  at  least  childish  impulses. 

"What  delight  a  child  takes  in  noticing  what 
is  smooth,  woolly,  hairy,  sparkling,  round,  etc. 
.  .  .  But  if  you  do  not  cherish  this  and  do  not 
set  it  going  in  the  right  way,  it  becomes  a  lost 
thing  ;  it  grows  rusty,  and  loses  its  power  as  a 
magnet  loses  its  power  when  it  is  not  sufficiently 
used.  Power  that  is  not  at  once  used,  effort  that 
does  not  at  once  meet  the  right  object — perishes." 
— M.,  p.  181. 

"Now,  at  last,  we  would  fain  give  another 
direction  to  the  energies,  desires  and  instincts 
(Krafte,  Neigungen  und  Triebe)  of  the  child 
growing  into  boyhood  ;  but  it  is  too  late.  For 
the  deep  meaning  of  child-life  passing  into  boy- 
hood we  not  only  failed  to  appreciate,  but  we 
misjudged  it ;  we  not  only  failed  to  nurse  it,  but 
we  misdirected  and  crushed  it." — E.,  p.  75. 

"See  parents,  the  first  impulse  to  activity,  the 
first  constructive  impulse  (Bildungstrieb)  comes 
from  man  according  to  the  nature  of  the  working  of 


78   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

his  mind,  unconsciously,  unrecognized,  without 
his  will,  as  man  can  indeed  perceive  in  himself  in 
later  life.  If,  however,  this  inner  summons  to 
activity  (diese  innere  Aufforderung  zur  Thatig- 
keit)  meets  with  outer  hindrance,  especially  such 
a  one  as  the  will  of  the  parents,  which  cannot  be 
set  aside,  the  power  is  at  once  weakened  in  itself, 
and  with  many  repetitions  of  this  weakening, 
falls  into  inaction." — E.,  p.  100. 

"The  neglect  of  inner  power  causes  the  inner 
power  itself  to  vanish." — E.,  p.  133. 

"It  is  true  there  are  few  such  children  ;  but 
there  would  be  more,  were  we  not  ignorantly 
blunting  so  many  tendencies  in  our  children,  or 
starving  them  into  inanition." — E.,  p.  220. 

Writing  of  the  origin  of  boyish  faults  Froebel  says  : 

"When  we  look  for  the  sources  of  these  short- 
comings ...  we  find  a  double  reason,  first,  com- 
plete neglect  of  the  development  of  certain  sides 
of  human  life,  secondly  early  misdirection,  early 
unnatural  stages  in  development,  and  distortion, 
through  arbitrary  interference  with  human  powers, 
qualities  and  tendencies  good  in  their  source.  .  .  . 
Therefore  at  the  bottom  of  every  shortcoming  in 
man,  lies  a  crushed,  frustrated  quality  or  ten- 
dency, suppressed,  misunderstood  or  misguided." 
—E.,  pp.  119-121. 

When  we  come  to  the  enumeration  of  the  various 
human  instincts  we  find  that  Froebel  can  hardly  be 
said  to  have  omitted  any  that  are  important  from  an 
educational  point  of  view,  except  perhaps  the  instinct 
of   fear,    and    to   this   he   would   be   loth    to   appeal.* 

*  Froebel  is  too  often  ignorantly  accused  of  being  "soft,"  but  it  is 
a  mistake  to  think  that  he  leaves  fear  out  of  count.  What  he  insists 
on  is,  that  rightly  used  authority  should  produce  self-control,  not 
servility. 


INSTINCT  AND  INSTINCTS  79 

Moreover,  it  can  be  shown  that  his  explanation  of 
certain  tendencies  suggests  a  better  basis  of  classifica- 
tion than  is  supplied  by  certain  recent  writers,  who 
might  be  expected  to  surpass  him  with  ease. 

Before  the  publication  of  Mr.  McDougall's  "Social 
Psychology, "  there  were  but  few  attempts  at  any  clas- 
sification of  instincts  within  at  least  the  reach  of 
English  readers.  In  July,  1900,  there  appeared  an 
article  in  "The  Pedagogical  Seminary"  in  which  Mr.  Eby 
proposed  to  reconstruct  the  Kindergarten  on  the  basis 
of  natural  instinct.  The  writer  had  apparently  no 
dawning  idea  that  this  was  the  original  basis*  of  the 
institution  he  proposes  to  reform,  but  Froebel's  account 
of  Instinct  shows  in  certain  ways  a  clearer  under- 
standing of  the  subject  than  does  his  own. 

Mr.  Eby's  tabulation  was  : 

I.- Language — with  gesture  and  expression. 
II.  Curiosity,  or  Instinct  for  Knowledge. 

III.  Play  Instinct. 

(a)  Motor  Plays. 

{b)  Hunting  and  Wandering. 

(c)  Imitative. 

{d)  Constructive. 

(e)  Agricultural. 

(/)  Improvised. 

IV.  Artistic  and  Aesthetic  Instincts. 
V.  Social  Instinct. 

VI.  Instinct  of  Acquisition  and  Ownership. 
VII.  Number  Instinct. 
VIII.  Interest  in  Stories. 

Another  classification,  well  known  at  least  to 
teachers,  is  that  given  by  Mr.  Kirkpatrick  in  his 
"Fundamentals  of  Child  Study."t 

♦^See  p.  90.  t  Macmillan,  1906. 


80        FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 
His  list  comprises  : 

I.  Individual  or  Self-preserving  Instincts. 

(Feeding,  Fear  and  Fighting.) 
II.  Parental  Instincts. 

III.  Social  or  Group  Instincts. 

(Gregariousness,  Sympathy,  Love  of  Ap- 
probation, Altruism.) 

IV.  Adaptive  Instincts. 

(Imitation,  Play,  Curiosity.) 
V.  Regulative. 

(Moral,  Religious.) 
■    VI.  Resultant  and  Miscellaneous. 

(Including  such  tendencies  as  those  of 
collecting  and  constructing,  and  the 
tendency  to  adornment,  with  the 
aesthetic  pleasure  of  contemplating 
beautiful  objects.) 

Interesting,  helpful  and  suggestive  as  these  lists 
are,  they  both  serve  as  examples  of  the  difficulty,  if 
not  impossibility,  of  any  hard-and-fast  lines  of  classifi- 
cation. For  example,  regulative  instincts,  which  Mr. 
Kirkpatrick  divides  into  moral  and  religious,  must  be 
derived  from  social  instincts ;  gregarious  instincts 
cannot  be  satisfactorily  separated  from  instincts  of 
self-preservation,  and  surely  all  instincts  must  be 
adaptive. 

Froebel's  account  of  the  instincts  of  a  child  in  some 
ways  resembles  that  of  Mr.  McDougall,  and  it  is 
certainly  in  some  points  more  enlightening  than  either 
of  the  others. 

Under  the  heading  of  Investigation,  Froebel  brings 
both  the  Number  Instinct,  and  the  Interest  in  Stories, 
to  which  Mr.  Eby  gives  a  position  as  fundamental  as 


INSTINCT  ANTD  INSTINCTS  81 

that  of  the  Social  Instinct.  The  constructive  instinct 
which  Mr.  Kirkpatrick  brings  under  "Resultant  and 
Miscellaneous,"  has  a  very  special  place  in  Froebel's 
account,  as  being  one  way  of  imitating,  that  is  another 
mode  of  investigating  the  surroundings,  and  also  what 
is  equally  important,  a  way  by  which  the  child  gains 
a  knowledge  of  his  own  power,  reaches  Self-Conscious- 
ness. 

It  is  because  of  the  emphasis  Froebel  continually 
lays  upon  the  developing  self-consciousness  that  his 
views  somewhat  tend  to  resemble  those  of  Mr. 
McDougall,  though  it  would  be. absurd  to  attempt  to 
draw  any  parallel.  For  Froebel,  though  he  in  no  way 
minimizes  the  importance  of  Imitation,  and  although 
it  is  as  the  apostle  of  Play  that  he  is  most  widely 
known,  yet,  like  Mr.  McDougall,  he  never  speaks  either 
of  an  Instinct  of  Play  nor  of  Imitation,  that  is,  he 
never  uses  for  these  his  special  word  Trieb ;  nor  has 
he  any  Instinct  for  Religion.  Curiously  enough,  too, 
Froebel,  with  his  constant  insistence  on  the  threefold 
aspect  of  mind,  partly  forestalls  Mr.  McDougall's  view 
that  "  instinctive  action  is  the  outcome  of  a  distinctly 
mental  process,  one  which  is  incapable  of  being  described 
in  purely  mechanical  terms,  .  .  .  and  one  which,  like 
every  other  mental  process,  has  and  can  only  be  fully 
described  in  terms  of  the  three  aspects  of  all  mental 
process,  the  cognitive,  the  affective,  and  the  conative 
aspects." 

It  is  in  connection  with  the  very  earliest  activity 
that  Froebel  writes  : 

"The  first  phenomenon  of  awakening  child-life 
is  activity.  It  is  an  inner  activity,  showing  itself 
by  consideration  of  and  working  with  what  is 
outer,  by  overcoming  hindrances  and  subduing  the 
outer.     The  nature  of  man  as  growing  towards, 


82   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

and  destined  to  reach  self-consciousness,  is  shown 
in  the  quite  peculiar  character  of  childish  activity 
even  as  early  as  when  the  infant  awakes  from  its 
so-called  three  months'  slumber.  It  is  shown  in 
the  child's  impulse  to  busy  himself -fin  dem  Triebe 
sich  zu  beschaftigen)  in  the  instinct,  one  with 
feeling  and  perception,  to  be  active  for  the  pro- 
gressive development  of  his  own  life. 

"We  are  repeatedly  impressed  with  the  con- 
viction that  everything  that  is  to  be  done  for  the 
specifically  human  development  of  the  child  must 
be  connected  with  the  fostering  of  this  instinct  to 
employ  himself.  For  this  instinct  corresponds  to 
man's  triune  activity  of  doing,  feeling  and  thinking. 
It  corresponds  to  the  essential  nature  oj  humanity, 
which  is  to  have  power  and  understanding,  to  become 
ever  more  and  more  self-conscious  and  self-deter- 
mining."— P.,  J).  24. 

In  the  last  sentence  of  this  passage,  which  refers 
to  the  merest  infant,  and  which  immediately  precedes 
Froebel's  comparison  of  human  instincts  with  those  of 
the  lower  animals,  are  indicated  the  lines  on  which  we 
may  say  Froebel  classified  though  he  never  did  so 
formally.  He  deals  only  with  the  "purely"  or  "speci- 
fically" human,  as  he  never  tires  of  reiterating,  so 
that  fundamental  animal  instincts,  self-preserving  and 
race-preserving,  such  as  feeding  and  the  sexual  impulse, 
are  little  noticed,  and  only  in  connection  with  the 
necessity  for  self-control. 

But,  as  with  Mr.  McDougall  much  is  made  to 
depend  on  self-feeling,  so  with  Froebel  still  more  does 
everything  centre  round  that  self-consciousness  which 
to  him  is  of  the  very  nature  of  man,  and  which  is 
made  possible  by  the  undefined  or  undeveloped 
character  of  human  instinct. 


INSTINCT  AND  INSTINCTS  83 

The  instincts  and  impulses  noted  by  Froebel,  all, 
be  it  clearly  understood,  in  the  service  of  the  growing 
self-consciousness,  and  self-determination  are :  the 
instinct  to  independent  activity  (der  Trieb  zur  Frei- 
und  Selbst-thatigkeit),  the  instinct  to  investigation 
(Forschungstrieb),  with  which  Froebel  deals  very 
thoroughly  and  by  which  he  explains  a  great  deal,  the 
impulse  of  acquisition,  the  instinct  of  construction  or 
formation  (Bildungstrieb  Gestaltungstrieb),  the  social 
instinct  and  the  maternal  instinct. 

Froebel  himself  never  tabulates,  yet  his  apparently 
careful  use  of  the  word  Trieb,  taken  along  with  his 
convincing  explanations  of  various  tendencies  (Rich- 
tungen,  Neigungen,  Streben)  seems  to  show  that  in 
relation  to  instinct  there  were  in  his  mind  two  pairs 
of  ideas,  so  closely  related  as  to  be  inseparable,  viz.  : 

(a)  Investigation  and  Control  of  Surroundings,  and 
(6)  Consciousness  of  Self  and  Self-Determination. 

It  is  impossible  to  become  conscious  of  one's  self 
except  by  becoming  conscious  of  a  world  of  objects.* 
It  is  equally  impossible  to  become  self-determining 
without  gaining  control  over  these  objects,  over  the 
surroundings.  In  order  to  control  the  surroundings, 
one  must  first  investigate  them,  and  this  investigation 
brings  with  it  self -consciousness,  knowledge  of  one's 
own  powers  and  consequent  self-determination.  All 
this  seems  fully  in  accordance  with  what  has  been 
already  stated  as  to  the  close  connection  between 
volitional  and  intellectual  development. 

The  two  main  lines  on  which  instinctive  action 
must  run,  if  it  is  to  be,  as  it  must  be,  adaptive,  are 
given  in  Froebel's  words,  "to  have  power  and  under- 
standing." To  adapt  ourselves  to  our  surroundings 
we  must  first  know  them,  and  secondly,  have  power 

*  P.  58. 


84   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

over  them.  Even  this  separation  into  firstly  and 
secondly  is  more  a  matter  of  words  than  of  reality. 
No  one  knew  more  clearly  or  emphasized  more  strongly 
than  Froebel  that  action,  by  which  alone  we  gain 
power,  is  also  the  child's  royal  road  to  knowledge. 
This  he  states  very  plainly  in  the  "Plan"  which  he 
drew  up  for  the  school  at  Helba,  which  unfortunately 
never  came  into  existence. 

"The  institution  will  be  fundamental  inasmuch 
as  in  training  and  instruction  it  will  rest  on  the 
foundation  from  which  proceed  all  genuine  know- 
ledge and  all  genuine  practical  attainments  ;  it 
will  rest  on  life  itself  and  on  creative  effort,  on  the 
union  and  interdependence  of  doing  and  thinking, 
representation  and  knowledge,  art  and  science. 
The  institution  will  base  its  work  on  the  pupil's 
personal  efforts  in  work  and  expression,  making 
these,  again,  the  foundation  of  all  genuine  know- 
ledge and  culture.  Joined  with  thoughtfulness 
these  efforts  become  a  direct  medium  of  culture  ; 
joined  with  reasoning,  they  become  a  direct  means 
of  instruction  and  thus  make  of  work  a  true 
subject  of  instruction." — E.,  p.  38. 

Knowledge  of  his  surroundings  is  however  not  the 
only  knowledge  that  the  child  gains  through  action  ; 
this  is  his  only  way  of  gaining  knowledge  of  himself, 
of  his  power  and  of  his  weakness.  It  is  through  out- 
ward activity  that,  as  Froebel  says,  he  "comes  to 
self-consciousness  and  learns  to  order,  determine  and 
master  himself,"  and  it  is  in  connection  with  the  earliest 
Impulse  to  Activity  that  Froebel  writes  : 

"The  present  effort  of  mankind  is  an  effort 
after  freer  self-development,  freer  self-formation, 
freer  determining  of  one's  own  destiny.  .  .  . 
Therefore    the    more    or    less    clear    aim    of    the 


INSTINCT  AND  INSTINCTS  85 

individual  is  Consciousness,  the  attaining  of 
clearness  about  himself  and  about  life  in  its 
unity  as  well  as  in  its  thousand  ramifications, 
to  attain  to  comprehension  and  right  use  of  life. 
.  .  .  That  this  highest  aim  may  be  accomplished, 
the  present  time  lays  upon  the  educator  the 
indispensable  obligation — to  understand  the  ear- 
liest activity,  the  first  action  of  the  child,  the 
impulse  (Trieb)  to  spontaneous  activity,  which 
appears  so  early  ;  to  foster  the  impulse  (Trieb)  for 
self-culture  and  self-instruction,  through  indepen- 
dent doing,  observing  and  experimenting." — P.,p.l5. 

"The  first  spontaneous  employments  of  the 
child  are  noticing  his  environment,  and  play,  that 
is,  independent  outward  action,  living  outside 
himself.  .  .  .  The  deepest  foundation  of  all  the 
phenomena,  of  the  earliest  activity  of  the  child 
is  this  ;  that  he  must  exercise  the  dim  anticipa- 
tion of  conscious  life,  and  consequently  must 
exercise  power,  test  and  thus  compare  power, 
exercise  independence,  test  and  thus  compare  the 
degree  of  independence." — P.,  pp.  29-31. 

"All  outer  activity  of  the  child  has  its  distinc- 
tive and  ultimate  ground  in  his  inmost  nature  and 
life.  The  deepest  craving  of  this  inner  life,  this 
inner  activity,  is  to  behold  itself  mirrored  in  some 
external  object.  In  and  through  such  reflection 
the  child  learns  to  know  his  own  activity,  its 
essence,  direction  and  aim,  and  learns  also  to 
order  and  determine  his  activity  in  correspondence 
with  the  outer  phenomena.  Such  mirroring  of 
the  inner  life,  such  making  of  the  inner  life  objec- 
tive is  essential,  for  through  it  the  child  comes  to 
self-consciousness,  and  learns  to  order,  determine 
and  master  himself.  The  child  must  perceive  and 
grasp  his  own  life  in  an  objective  manifestation 


86   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

before  he  can  perceive  and  grasp  it  in  himself." 
—P.,  p.  238. 

It  may  seem  very  presumptuous  to  venture  to 
discuss  here  the  classification  of  instincts  adopted  by 
Mr.  McDougall,  yet  there  are  in  it  a  few  points  which 
would  not  have  appealed  to  Froebel,  and  it  is  con- 
ceivable that  Mr.  McDougall  might  make  alterations 
in  a  future  edition  and  attach  even  more  importance 
to  positive  self-feeling  as  Froebel  would  undoubtedly 
have  done.  It  is  impossible  to  imagine  Froebel  having 
any  dealings  with  an  Instinct  of  Self-Abasement, 
though  the  Instinct  of  Self-Assertion  is  in  full  accord- 
ance with  his  ideas.  And  while  it  is  hard  to  see  the 
biological  utility  of  an  Instinct  of  Self-Abasement,  it 
does  seem  as  if  the  frustration  of  the  Instinct  of  Self- 
Assertion  might  be  made  to  cover  all  that  is  brought 
under  its  opposite. 

It  is  difficult,  too,  to  imagine  Froebel  allowing  an 
Instinct  of  Pugnacity,  and  Mr.  McDougall  allows  that 
this  presupposes  the  other  instincts,  and  that  it  can- 
not strictly  be  brought  under  his  own  definition  of 
instinct.  He  allows,  too,  that  this  instinct  is  "lacking 
in  the  constitution  of  the  females  of  some  species," 
and  it  seems  impossible  not  to  notice  the  difference 
between  little  boys  and  girls  in  this  respect.  Surely 
it  puts  too  much  to  the  credit  of  mere  pugnacity  to 
say  :  "A  man  devoid  of  the  pugnacious  instinct  would 
not  only  be  incapable  of  anger,  but  would  lack  this 
great  source  of  reserve  energy,  which  is  called  into 
play  in  most  of  us  by  any  difficulty  in  our  path."* 
The  Instinct  of  Self-Assertion,  if  it  is  worth  anything, 
ought   to    be   sufficient   not   only   to   produce   anger,  ^ 

*  "  Social  Psychology,"  p.  61. 

t  Mr.  McDougall  allows  {p.  60)  that  in  the  case  of  an  unprovoked 
blow,  the  impulse,  the  thwarting  of  which  provokes  anger,  is  the  im- 
pulse of  self-assertion. 


INSTINCT  AND  INSTINCTS  87 

but  also  to  call  up  reserve  energy  to  deal  with  diffi- 
culties. Certainly  Froebel  would  have  said  so.  No 
doubt  it  is  because  of  her  weaker  physique  that  the 
woman  has  not  the  pugnacity  of  the  man,  but  Froebel 
too  wrote  mainly  of  the  boy,  and  he  puts  boyish 
tussling  and  fighting  down  to  the  instinctive  desire  to 
measure  and  to  increase  power  and  this  can  easily  be 
matched  on  the  female  side,  though  the  power 
measured  may  not  be  that  of  muscle. 

"At  this  age  the  healthy  boy  brought  up 
simply  and  naturally  never  evades  an  obstacle, 
a  difficulty  ;  nay  he  seeks  it  and  overcomes  it. 
'Let  it  lie,'  the  vigorous  youngster  exclaims  to 
his  father,  who  is  about  to  roll  a  piece  of  wood 
out  of  the  boy's  way — '  let  it  lie,  I  can  get  over  it.' 
With  difficulty,  indeed,  the  boy  gets  over  it  the 
first  time  ;  but  he  has  accomplished  the  feat  by 
his  own  strength.  Strength  and  courage  have 
grown  in  him.  He  returns,  gets  over  the  obstacle 
a  second  time,  and  soon  he  learns  to  clear  it  easily. 
.  .  .  The  most  difficult  thing  seems  easy,  the  most 
daring  thing  seems  without  danger  to  him,  for 
his  prompting  comes  from  the  innermost,  from  his 
heart  and  will."— E.,  p.  102. 

"Many  of  the  plays  and  occupations  of  boys 
at  this  age  are  predominantly  mere  practice  and 
trials  of  strength,  and  many  aim  simply  at  display 
of  strength.  .  .  .  The  hoy  tries  to  see  himself  in  his 
companions,  to  feel  himself  in  them,  to  weigh  and 
measure  himself  by  them,  to  know  and  find  himself 
with  their  help" — E.,  pp.  112-114. 

In  passing,  it  may  be  suggested  that  it  hardly  seems 
worth  while  to  postulate  an  Instinct  of  Repulsion  with 
the  impulses  or  actions  of  rejecting  evil-tasting  sub- 
stances from  the  mouth  and  of  shrinking  from  objects 


88   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

which  are  slimy  or  slippery.  Surely  the  rejection  of 
unsuitable  food  might  be  a  compound  reflex  action 
tending  to  the  preservation  of  health  ;  while  shrinking 
from  slimy  objects,  and  even  from  the  touch  of  fur, 
might  have  had  their  uses  in  the  case  of  children  left 
in  caves,  and  might  be  drawn  under  the  instinct  of 
fear. 

There  does  not  seem  to  be  anything  to  which  Mr. 
McDougall  would  take  exception  in  what  Froebel  has 
to  say  about  Play  or  about  Imitation. 

As  to  play,  Froebel  must  be  regarded  as  a  pioneer 
in  the  attempt  to  explain  a  subject  all  important  to 
educators,  and  by  his  explanation  certain  kinds,  and 
notably  imitative  play  find  an  appropriate  place  under 
his  instinct  of  investigation  (Forschungstrieb). 

"The  means  of  shadowing  forth  to  the  child 
his  own  nature  and  that  of  the  cosmos  are  his  play 
and  playthings." — P.,  p.  201. 

As  the  word  Investigation  certainly  implies 
activity,  it  may  be  permissible  to  wonder  why  Mr. 
McDougall  has  not  made  use  of  the  terms  "The  In- 
stinct of  Investigation  and  the  Emotion  of  Curiosity," 
the  more  so  that  he  himself  has  clearly  a  strong  in- 
clination to  use  the  word  curiosity  to  express  emotion.* 

Imitation,  as  we  have  seen,j"  is,  according  to 
Froebel,  action  which  renders  a  child  conscious  of 
what  is  around  him,  conscious  of  his  inner  life  of  per- 
ceptions, ideas  and  feelings,  conscious  of  his  own 
power.  Froebel  also  points  out  that  imitation,  as  well 
as  habit,  is  the  outcome  of  a  more  fundamental 
impulse  to  activity. 

*  For  example,  on  p.  46,  "  Hence  language  provides  special 
names  for  such  modes  of  affective  experience,  names  such  as  anger, 
fear,  curiosity";  and  on  p.  94,  in  connection  with  the  sympathetic 
induction  of  emotion,  we  have,  "Later  still,  fear,  curiosity,  and,  I 
think,  anger  are  communicated  readily  from  one  child  to  another  "  ; 
and  there  are  other  examples.  t  -P-  51. 


INSTINCT  AND  INSTINCTS        89 

"It  is  just  as  important  to  notice  the  habits 
of  a  child,  especially  with  regard  to  cause  and 
effect,  as  it  is  to  notice  and  to  foster  its  impulse 
to  activity.  ...  As  now  habit  springs  from  free 
and  spontaneous  activity,  so  too  does  imitation, 
and  it  is  no  less  important  for  the  fostering  of 
child-life  to  keep  in  view  this  origin  of  imitation, 
than  it  is  to  keep  in  view  the  phenomena  of  habit, 
custom  and  independent  activity.  For  we  see  the 
whole  inner  life  of  the  child  manifest  itself  as  a 
tri-unity  in  the  threefold  phenomenon  of  spon- 
taneous activity,  habit  and  imitation.  These 
three  phenomena  are  closely  united  in  early 
childhood,  and  give  us  most  important  discoveries 
concerning  child-life,  as  to  foundation  and  result 
and  surest  guides  for  the  early  correct  treatment 
of  the  child."— P.,  p.  27. 

Mr.  McDougall  notes  "at  least  three  distinct 
classes"  of  imitative  actions.  The  first  class  consists 
of  expressive  actions,  secondary  to  the  sympathetic 
induction  of  the  emotions  they  express,  as  when  a 
child  responds  to  a  smile  with  a  smile,  and  here  we 
remember  how  Froebel  notes  the  child's  first  smile  to 
his  mother  as  the  earliest  sign  of  what  he  calls  "the 
feeling  of  community."  The  third  class  is  the  deli- 
berate and  voluntary  imitation  of  an  admired  person, 
which  does  not  concern  us  here.  The  second  class 
are  "simple  ideo-motor  actions  evoked  by  the  visual 
presentation  of  a  movement,"  and  as  a  parallel  to  this 
we  have  Froebel's  "working  of  the  inner  activity 
wakened  by  the  sight  of  outer  activity." 

"The  smallest  child  moves  joyfully,  springs 
gaily,  hops  up  and  down,  or  beats  with  his  arms 
when  he  sees  a  moving  object.  This  is  certainly 
not  merely  delight  in  the  movement  of  the  object 


90   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

before  him,  but  it  is  the  working  of  inner  activity 
wakened  in  him  by  the  sight  of  outer  activity. 
Through  such  vision  the  inner  hfe  has  been  freed. 
.  .  ."—P.,  pp.  239-40. 

A  point  to  which  exception  may  well  be  taken  is 
that  in  the  infant  Froebel  notes  what  he  seems  to 
regard  as  a  fundamental  tendency,  the  impulse  or 
instinct  of  activity,  or  as  he  frequently  puts  it,  the 
impulse  to  busy  oneself,  which,  however,  soon  differ- 
entiates into  two  more  specific  tendencies,  viz.  the 
impulse  to  investigate  and  the  constructive  impulse. 

"What  formerly  the  child  did  only  for  the 
sake  of  activity,  the  boy  now  does  for  the  sake  of 
the  result  or  product  of  his  activity.  The  child's 
impulse  to  activity  (Thatigkeitstrieb)  has  in  the 
boy  become  a  constructive,  a  formative  impulse 
(Bildungs-Gestaltungstriebe),  in  which  the  whole 
outer  life  of  the  boy  finds  at  this  stage  its  outlet." 
—E.,  p.  99. 

It  may  be  worth  mentioning  that  Groos  would  like 
to  assume  a  "universal  impulse  to  activity,"  and 
though  he  "can  only  hold  fast  to  the  primal  need  for 
activity,"  yet  according  to  him  Ribot  approaches  this 
assumption. — ("The  Play  of  Man,"  p.  3). 

Even  in  the  infant,  however,  this  instinct  or  im- 
pulse to  activity  is  devoted  to  "penetrating  what  is 
outer,"  and  the  Kindergarten,  meant  for  children  from 
three  to  six,  is  intended  to  foster  the  three  instincts, 
activity,  investigation  and  construction,  as  well  as  to 
cultivate  the  social  instinct  by  placing  a  little  child 
among  his  equals.  Froebel  describes  it  in  his  plan 
as : 

"An  Institution 

for  fostering  of  family  life  and  for  shaping  the 
life  of  the  nation  and  human  life  generally,  through 


INSTINCT  AND  INSTINCTS        91 

cultivating  the  human  instincts  of  activity,  of 
investigation  (Forschungstrieb),  and  of  construc- 
tion in  the  child,  as  a  member  of  the  family,  of  the 
nation,  and  of  humanity.  .  .  ." — P.,  p.  6. 

As  regards  the  child,  the  word  Trieb,  which  is 
exactly  equal  to  impulse,  seems  to  be  applied  only  in 
one  other  direction,  to  what  we  would  call  the  social 
instinct,  and  here  again  Froebel  shows  his  recognition 
of  the  vagueness  and  indefiniteness  of  early  conscious- 
ness. As  he  attributes  to  the  infant  the  one  impulse 
to  activity  which  differentiates  later  into  Investigation 
and  Construction,  so  in  the  infant  he  recognizes  a 
"  feeling  of  community  "  (Gesammtgefiihl),  but  says 
that  it  differentiates  later  into  something  more  definite.* 

"The  development  of  man  constitutes  an 
unbroken  whole,  steadily  and  continuously  pro- 
gressing, gradually  ascending.  The  feeling  of 
community  (Gemeingefiihl)  awakened  in  the  infant, 
develops  in  the  child  into  impulse,  inclination 
(entwickelt  sich  in  dem  Kinde  der  Trieb,  die 
Neigung)." — E.,  p.  95. 

Under  the  important  Instinct  of  Investigation,  or 
the  Instinct  for  Self-Instruction,  Froebel  includes  a 
great  deal.  Many  different  activities  until  recently 
somewhat  carelessly  talked  of  collectively  as  "play," 
Froebel  has  separated  and  explained  as  the  child's 
way  of  investigating  his  surroundings.  Even  "the 
earliest  activity  and  first  action  of  the  child,"  Froebel 
says,  shows  "the  instinct  to  self -teaching  and  self- 
instruction." 

Imitative    action     or    imitative    play    is     always 

*  This  is  all  that  can  be  said,  for  the  passage  seems  incomplete  ; 
after  "entwickelt  ....  der  Trieb  die  Neigung,"  comes  only  •' sie 
fuhren  zur  Gemuths  und  Herzensbildung ;  und  aus  ihr  geht  in  dem 
Knaben  Geistes-und  Willensthatigkeit  hervor." 


92   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

referred  to  as  action  which  helps  towards  under- 
standing of  the  surroundings.  In  the  "  Mother  Songs  " 
we  read  : 

"Your  child  will  certainly  understand  all  the 
better  if  you  make  him  take  a  part — though  it 
be  only  by  imitation — in  what  grown-up  people 
are  doing  in  their  anxiety  to  maintain  life.  ..." 
—M.,  p.  141. 

"I  have  already  said  that  this  little  game 
arose  because  people  felt  that  a  child's  love  of 
activity,  and  his  striving  to  get  the  use  of  his 
limbs,  ought  to  be  carried  on  in  such  a  way  as  to 
lift  him  at  once  into  the  complexity  of  the  life 
which  surrounds  him.  .  .  .  Pray  do  not  disturb 
them  in  their  ingenious  charming  play  (saying 
grace  over  the  dolls'  feast),  but  rather  avoid 
noticing  it  if  you  cannot  identify  yourself  with 
its  charm.  .  .  .  For  how  is  your  child  to  cultivate 
in  himself  the  feeling  of  what  is  holy,  if  you  will 
not  grant  that  it  takes  form  for  him  in  all  its  purity 
in  his  innocent  games." — M.,  p.  148. 

"What  man  tries  to  represent  he  begins  to 
understand." — E.,  p.  76. 

Representation,  however,  may  be  carried  out  in 
many  ways,  by  the  use  of  material,  as  well  as  by 
bodily  action  so  that  the  constructive  instinct  also 
subserves  that  of  investigation. 

"To  grasp  a  thing  through  life  and  action  is 
much  more  developing,  cultivating  and  streng- 
thening than  merely  to  receive  it  through  the 
verbal  communication  of  ideas.  Similarly,  represen- 
tation of  a  thing  by  material  means,  in  life  and 
action,  united  with  thought  and  speech,  is  more 
developing  than  merely  verbal  representation  of 
ideas."— ^.,  p.  279. 


INSTINCT  AND  INSTINCTS  98 

"The  child  must  perceive  and  grasp  his  own 
life  in  an  objective  manifestation  before  he  can 
perceive  and  grasp  it  in  himself.  This  law  of 
development,  prescribed  by  Nature  and  by  the 
essential  character  of  the  child,  must  always  be 
respected  and  obeyed  by  the  true  educator.  Its 
recognition  is  the  aim  of  my  gifts  and  games 
apprehended  relatively  to  the  educator." — P.,  p.  38. 

Here  Froebel  has  plainly  stated  the  main  object  of 
his  specially  selected  play-material.  The  ordinary 
parent  not  being  "the  man  advanced  in  insight,"  who 
"makes  clear  to  himself  the  purpose  of  playthings," 
Froebel  often  saw  children  supplied  with  expensive 
but  unsuitable  toys,  toys  which  would  not  bring  the 
child  any  nearer  his  destination,  "to  have  power 
and  understanding,  to  become  ever  more  and  more 
self-conscious  and  self -determining." 

"Here,  then,  we  meet  as  a  great  imperfection 
in  ordinary  playthings,  a  disturbing  element 
which  slumbers  like  a  viper  under  roses,  viz.  that 
it  is  too  complex,  too  much  finished.  The  child 
can  begin  no  new  thing  with  it,  cannot  produce 
enough  variety  by  it ;  his  power  of  creative 
imagination,  his  power  of  giving  outward  form  to 
his  own  idea  is  thus  actually  deadened.  When 
we  provide  children  with  too  finished  playthings, 
we  deprive  them  of  the  incentive  to  perceive  the 
particular  in  the  general  (P.,  p.  122).  .  .  .  What 
presents  are  most  prized  by  the  child  ?  Those 
which  afford  him  a  means  of  unfolding  his  inner 
life  most  freely  and  of  shaping  it  in  various  direc- 
tions."—P.,  p.  142. 

"The  man,  advanced  in  insight,  should  be  as 
clear  as  possible  in  his  own  mind  about  all  this 
before  he  introduces  his  child  into  the  outer  world. 


94   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

Even  when  he  gives  the  child  a  plaything,  he  must 
make  clear  to  himself  its  purpose,  and  the  purpose 
of  playthings  and  occupation  material  in  general. 
This  purpose  is,  to  aid  the  child  freely  to  express 
what  is  in  him  and  to  bring  the  phenomena  of  the 
outer  world  nearer  to  him." — P.,  p.  171. 

"To  realize  his  aims,  man,  and  more  par- 
ticularly the  child,  requires  material,  if  it  be  only 
a  bit  of  wood  or  a  pebble  with  which  he  makes 
something  or  which  he  makes  into  something. 
In  order  to  lead  the  child  to  the  handling  of 
material,  we  gave  him  the  soft  ball,  the  wooden 
sphere  and  cube,  etc.,  discussed  in  the  chapters 
on  the  Kindergarten  Gifts.  Each  of  these  gifts 
incites  the  child  to  free  spontaneous  activity,  to 
independent  movement."* — P.,  p.  237. 

As  the  child  grows  older  his  constructions  advance, 
but  still  they  connect  themselves  with  investigating : 

"Here  he  makes  a  little  garden  under  the 
hedge ;  there  he  represents  the  course  of  the  river 
in  his  furrow  and  in  his  ditch ;  there  he  studies 
the  effects  of  the  fall  or  pressure  of  water  upon 
his  little  water-wheel." — E.,  p.  105. 

Investigating  naturally  leads  to  exploring,  "ex- 
ternal objects  invite  him  who  would  bring  them  nearer 
to  move  toward  them,"  and  so  the  child  once  he  is 
able  to  stand  begins  to  travel : 

"When  the  child  makes  his  first  attempts  at 
walking  he  frequently  tries  to  go  to  some  par- 
ticular object.  This  effort  may  have  its  source 
in  the  child's  desire  to  hold  himself  firm  and 
upright  by  it,  but  we  also  observe  that  it  gives 
him  pleasure  to  be  near  the  object,  to  touch  it, 
to    feel    it,    and    perhaps    also — a   new    phase    of 

*  For  a  fuller  account  of  these  "Gifts,"  see  Chap.  VIII.,  p.  148. 


INSTINCT  AND  INSTINCTS  95 

activity — to  be  able  to  move  it.  Hence  we  see 
the  child  hops  up  and  down  before  it  and  beats 
on  it  with  his  little  hands,  in  order  to  assure 
himself  of  the  reality  of  the  object,  and  to  notice 
its  qualities.  .  .  .  Each  new  phenomenon  is  a 
discovery  in  the  child's  small  and  yet  rich  world 
— e.g.  one  can  go  round  the  chair,  one  can  stand 
before,  behind,  beside  it,  but  one  cannot  go 
behind  the  bench  or  the  wall.  He  likes  to  change 
his  relationship  to  different  objects,  and  through 
these  changes  he  seeks  self-recognition  and  self- 
comprehension,  as  well  as  recognition  of  the 
different  objects  which  surround  him,  and  recog- 
nition of  his  environment  as  a  whole.  Each 
little  walk  is  a  tour  of  discovery ;  each  object 
is  an  America — a  new  world,  which  he  either 
goes  around  to  see  if  it  be  an  island,  or  whose 
coast  he  follows  to  discover  if  it  be  a  continent." 
—P.,  p.  243. 

The  boy  has  lost  none  of  this  tendency  to  explore* 
but  he  goes  further  afield,  and  it  is  worth  noting  that 
because  the  boy  has  a  distinct  purpose  in  view  his 
exploring  is  distinctly  called  work. 

"If  activity  brought  joy  to  the  child,  work 
now  gives  delight  to  the  boy.  Hence  the  daring 
and  venturesome  feats  of  boyhood  ;  the  explora- 
tions of  caves  and  ravines  ;  the  climbing  of  trees 
and  mountains ;  the  searching  of  heights  and 
depths  ;  the  roaming  through  fields  and  forests. 
...  To  climb  a  new  tree  means  to  the  boy  the 
discovery  of  a  new  world.  .  .  .  Not  less  signi- 
ficant of  development  is  the  boy's  inclination 
(Neigung)  to  descend  into  caves  and  ravines,  to 
ramble  in  the  shady  grove  and  dark  forest." — 
E.y  pp.  102-5. 


96   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

Even  the  baby  shows  trace  of  the  collecting  or 
acquiring  instinct,  but  to  Froebel  this  still  falls  under 
the  head  of  investigation.  The  child  who  has  just 
learned  to  walk  is  : 

"attracted  by  the  bright  round  smooth  pebble, 
by  the  quaint  brilhant  leaf,  by  the  smooth  piece 
of  wood,  and  he  tries  to  get  hold  of  these  with 
the  help  of  the  newly  acquired  use  of  his  limbs. 
Look  at  the  child  that  can  scarcely  keep  himself 
erect  and  that  can  walk  only  with  the  greatest 
care — he  sees  a  twig,  a  bit  of  straw  ;  painfully  he 
secures  it.  .  .  .  See  the  child  laboriously  stooping 
and  slowly  going  forward  under  the  eaves.  The 
force  of  the  rain  has  washed  out  of  the  sand 
small,  smooth,  bright  pebbles,  and  the  ever- 
observing  child  gathers  them." — E.,  p.  72. 

The  boy,  still  only  from  six  to  eight  years  old, 
keeps  up  the  collecting  habit  with  more  method  and 
with  a  wider  range,  and  he  demands  assistance. 

"Not  less  full  of  significance,  nor  less  develop- 
ing, is  the  boy's  inclination  to  descend  into  caves 
and  ravines,  to  ramble  in  the  shady  grove  and  in 
the  dark  forest.  It  is  the  effort  (Streben)  to  seek 
and  find  the  new,  to  see  and  discover  the  hidden, 
the  desire  to  bring  to  light  and  to  appropriate 
that  which  lies  concealed  in  darkness  and  shadow. 

"From  these  rambles  the  boy  returns  with 
rich  treasures  of  unknown  stones  and  plants,  of 
animals — ^worms,  beetles,  spiders  and  lizards,  that 
dwell  in  darkness  and  concealment.  'What  is 
this  ?  What  is  its  name  ?  '  etc.,  are  the  questions 
to  be  answered  ;  and  every  new  word  enriches 
his  world  and  throws  light  upon  his  surroundings. 
Beware  of  greeting  him  with  the  exclamation, 
'Fie,  throw  that  down,  that  is  horrid  ! '  or  'Drop 


INSTINCT  AND  INSTINCTS  97 

that,  it  will  bite  you  ! '  If  the  child  obeys,  he 
drops  and  throws  away  a  considerable  portion  of 
his  power." — E.,  p.  104. 

This  quotation  brings  us  to  another  mode  of  inves- 
tigation, that  of  asking  questions,  which  Froebel  was 
not  likely  to  miss. 

"The  child,  your  child,  ye  fathers,  follows  you 
wherever  you  go.  Do  not  harshly  repel  him. 
Show  no  impatience  about  his  ever-recurring 
questions.  Every  harshly  repelling  word  crushes 
a  bud  of  his  tree  of  life.  .  .  .  Question  upon  ques- 
tion comes  from  the  lips  of  the  boy  thirsting  for 
knowledge— How  ?  Why?  When?  What  for? 
and  every  satisfactory  answer  opens  to  him  a  new 
world."— E.,  p.  86. 

Professor  O'Shea  has  an  interesting  section  on 
what  he  calls  "The  Sense  of  Location,"  which  he  says 
is  "at  the  bottom  of  one  of  the  most  interesting  and 
important  phenomena  of  adjustment — the  questioning 
activity."  So  it  may  be  worth  while  to  notice  that 
Froebel,  whom  the  Professor  has  dismissed  with  one 
slighting  reference,  has  been  beforehand  with  him  here, 
and  has  dealt  with  this  same  early  beginning  in  one 
of  his  earliest  Mother  Songs,  viz.  "It's  all  Gone," 
where  he  says  to  the  mother  : 

"How  can  the  child  understand  that  anything 
is  "all  gone,"  yet  he  must  see  sense  in  it  or  he 
will  not  be  satisfied.  What  he  saw  just  now  is 
there  no  longer,  what  was  above  is  below,  what 
was  there  has  vanished." — M.,  p.  18. 

Questioning  implies  language,  but  Froebel  has  no 
language  instinct.  He  does,  however,  call  speech 
immediate  (unmittelbar),  usually  translated  "innate," 
and  he  does  say  that  because  others  talk  to  him,  the 


98   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

child's  capacity  for  speech  will  develop  of  necessity 
and  will  break  forth  spontaneously. 

It  is  in  connection  with  the  child's  earliest  investi- 
gations that  Froebel  brings  in  the  learning  to  speak. 
In  "The  Education  of  Man,"  he  notes  how  the  young 
child  brings  all  his  discoveries,  "his  treasures,"  to  the 
mother's  lap,  and  she  is  warned  to  give  the  right  kind 
of  help  and  at  the  right  time. 

"It  is  the  longing  for  interpretation  that  urges 
the  child  to  appeal  to  us,  it  is  the  intense  desire 
for  this  that  urges  him  to  bring  his  treasures  to 
us  and  to  lay  them  in  our  laps.  The  child  loves 
all  things  that  enter  his  small  horizon  and  extend 
his  little  world.  To  him  the  least  thing  is  a  new 
discovery  ;  but  it  must  not  come  dead  into  the 
little  world,  nor  lie  dead  therein  lest  it  obscure 
the  small  horizon  and  crush  the  little  world." — 
E.,  p.  73. 

All  the  help  the  mother  need  give  at  first  is  to 
supply  names,  since  as  Froebel  says,  "the  name,  as  it 
were,  creates  the  thing  for  the  child."  Later  she  must 
help  him  to  compare  and  classify. 

"How  little  is  needed  from  those  around  the 
child  to  aid  him  in  this  tendency  (to  seek  for 
knowledge).  It  is  only  necessary  to  name,  to  put 
into  words  what  the  child  does,  sees  and  finds." 
—E.,  p.  75. 

"It  is  as  well  while  the  child  is  making  these 
first  experiments  (at  walking  about  the  room)  to 
name  the  objects — e.g.  There  is  the  chair,  the 
table,  etc.  .  .  .  The  object  of  giving  these  names 
is  not  primarily  the  development  of  the  child's 
power  of  speech,  but  to  assist  his  comprehension 
of  the  object,  its  parts  and  its  properties  by 
defining   his   sense-impressions.     By   a   rich   store 


INSTINCT  AND  INSTINCTS  99 

of  such  experiences  the  capacity  for  speech 
develops  of  necessity,  and  speech  breaks  forth  of 
itself,  as  it  were,  through  heightened  mental  self- 
activity  in  accordance  with  the  nature  of  mind." 
—P.,  p.  242. 

Expression,  of  course,  of  which  speech  is  but  one 
form,  is  to  Froebel  all -important.  "Speech,"  he  says, 
is  "required  and  conditioned  by  the  attainment  to 
consciousness,"  and  as  self -consciousness  is  the  charac- 
teristic of  humanity,  so  speech  is  "  the  first  manifestation 
of  mankind."     In  his  "Autobiography  "  Froebel  writes  : 

"Mankind  as  a  whole,  as  one  great  unity,  had 
now  become  my  quickening  thought.  I  kept  this 
conception  continually  before  my  mind.  I  sought 
after  proofs  of  it  in  my  little  world  within  and  in 
the  great  world  without  me  ;  I  desired  by  many 
a  struggle  to  win  it,  and  then  to  set  it  worthily 
forth.  And  thus  I  was  led  back  to  the  first  ap- 
pearance of  man  upon  our  earth,  and  to  the  first 
manifestation  of  mankind,  his  speech." — A.,  p.  84. 

In  talking  of  the  mother's  play  with  an  infant  he 
says  that  she  accompanies  every  action  with  words, 
"  even  if  obliged  to  confess  that  there  can  be  no  under- 
standing of  the  spoken  word,"  as  "the  general  sense 
of  hearing  is  not  yet  developed,  still  less  the  special 
sense  of  hearing  words."     Froebel  says  she  is  right : 

"for  that  which  will  one  day  develop  and  which 
must  originate,  begins  and  must  begin  when  there 
is  as  yet  only  the  conditions,  the  possibility 
thereof.  Thus  it  is  with  the  attainment  of  the 
human  being  to  consciousness,  and  the  speech 
required  and  conditioned  by  consciousness." — 
P.,  p.  40. 


100   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

Words,  says  Froebel,  first  separate  the  child  from 
the  world  outside  him. 

"Up  to  this  stage  (the  beginning  of  speech), 
the  inner  being  of  man  is  still  an  unmembered, 
undifferentiated  unity.  With  language,  the  ex- 
pression and  representation  of  the  internal  begin  ; 
with  language,  organization,  or  a  differentiation 
with  reference  to  ends  and  means  sets  in." — 
E.,  p.  50. 

Both  in  the  earlier  "Education  of  Man,"  and  in 
his  later  writings  Froebel  uses  the  strong  expression 
that  "the  word  creates  the  thing"  for  the  child,  and 
in  one  passage  he  adds  that  by  language  the  idea  is 
defined  and  retained. 

"This  period  is  pre-eminently  the  period  of 
the  development  of  speech.  Therefore  in  all  the 
child  did,  it  was  indispensable  that  what  he  did 
should  be  clearly  designated  by  words.  Every 
object,  every  thing  became  such,  as  it  were,  only 
through  the  word ;  before  it  had  been  named 
although  the  child  might  have  seemed  to  see  it 
with  the  outer  eyes,  it  had  no  existence  for  the 
child.  The  name,  as  it  were,  created  the  thing 
for  the  child ;  hence  the  name  and  the  thing 
seemed  to  be  one." — E.,  p.  90. 

"Through  her  little  rhymes  the  mother  will 
make  clear  to  the  little  one  what  he  has  done,  and 
so  his  accidental  productions  will  become  a  point 
of  departure  for  his  self-development.  Word  and 
form  are  opposite  and  yet  related.  Hence  the 
word  should  accompany  the  form  as  its  shadow. 
In  a  certain  sense,  giving  a  form  a  name  really 
creates  the  form  itself.  Through  the  name,  more- 
over, the  form  is  retained  in  memory  and  defined 
in  thought."— P.,  p.  192. 


INSTINCT  AND  INSTINCTS  101 

Of  very  early  speech  Froebel  says  that  it  shows  : 

"the  peculiarity  and  requirement  of  the  human 
mind  to  render  itself  intelhgible  to  clarify  itself 
by  communication  with  others." — P.,  p.  56. 

Having  investigated  his  surroundings,  near  or  far, 
and  collected  what  seems  to  him  attractive,  the  child, 
whether  older  or  younger,  arranges  his  treasures  in 
some  way,  and  this  arrangement  implies  some  com- 
parison. "Like  things  must  be  ranged  together  and 
things  unlike  must  be  separated,"  says  Froebel  of  the 
diild  "scarce  able  to  walk,"  who  has  collected  "the 
small,  smooth,  pebbles  washed  out  of  the  sand  by  the 
rain."  This  "arranging  objects  of  each  kind  singly 
in  a  row"  is  at  first  no  doubt  only  a  recognition  of  the 
like  and  unlike,  but  Froebel  notes  that  it  is  also  one 
way  in  which  the  child  may  arrive  at  "the  capacity 
for  counting"  by  which  his  sphere  of  knowledge  is 
again  extended." 

"The  knowledge  of  the  relations  of  quantity 
adds  much  to  a  child's  life.  ...  At  first  he  places 
together  similar  objects.  .  .  .  Who  has  not  had 
frequent  opportunity  to  observe  how  the  child 
arranges  the  objects  of  each  kind  singly  in  a  row. 
Let  the  mother  supply  the  quickening  word, 
saying  Apple,  apple,  apple,  etc.  All  apples. 
Pear,  pear,  pear,  etc.  All  pears.  .  .  .  One  pear, 
another  apple,  another  apple.  .  .  .  Instead  of  the 
indefinite  word  "another"  the  mother  subse- 
quently uses  the  numerals,  counting  together  with 
the  child,  thus :  One  apple,  two  apples,  three 
apples,  etc." — E.,  p.  80. 

To  many  children,  however,  counting  may  come 
through  efforts  to  draw.  I  have  seen  a  child  of  four- 
and-a-half,  in  drawing  a  man,  make  a  line  for  the  arm. 


102      FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

then  lay  down  her  pencil  to  count  her  own  fingers  and 
then  draw  five  lines  for  the  man's  hand.  Froebel 
says  : 

"The  representation  of  objects  by  drawing, 
and  the  exact  perception  conditioned  and  re- 
quired by  the  representation,  soon  leads  the  child 
quickly  to  recognize  the  constantly  repeated 
association  of  certain  numbers  of  different  objects 
— e.g.  two  eyes  and  two  arms,  five  fingers,  etc. 
Thus  the  drawing  of  the  object  leads  to  the  dis- 
covery of  number.  ,  .  .  By  the  development  of 
the  capacity  for  counting,  the  child's  sphere  of 
knowledge,  his  world,  is  again  extended.  .  .  . 
He  was  unable  to  determine  relative  quantities, 
but  now  he  knows  that  he  has  two  large  and  three 
small  pebbles,  four  white  and  five  yellow  flowers," 
etc.— E.,  p.  80. 

Yet  another  mode  of  Investigation  is  that  of 
Experimenting  ;  every  normal  child  is  what  Froebel 
calls  "a  self -teaching  scientist." 

"The  material  must  be  known  not  only  by  its 
name,  but  by  its  qualities  and  uses.  .  .  .  For  this 
reason  the  child  examines  the  object  on  all  sides ; 
for  this  reason  he  tears  and  breaks  it ;  for  this  reason 
he  puts  it  in  his  moUth  and  bites  it.  We  reprove 
the  child  for  his  naughtiness  and  foolishness  ;  and 
yet  he  is  wiser  than  we  who  reprove  him.  An 
instinct  which  the  child  did  not  give  himself,  the 
instinct  which  rightly  understood  and  rightly 
guided  would  lead  him  to  know  God  in  his  works, 
drives  him  to  this." — E.,  p.  73. 

It  may  well  be  through  his  ceaseless  experimenting 
that  the  little  child  begins  to  draw,  gains  what  the  late 
Mr.  Ebenezer  Cooke  called  "a  language  of  line,"   or 


INSTINCT  AND  INSTINCTS  103 

as  Froebel  puts  it,  notices  "linear  phenomena,  which 
direct  his  attention  to  the  hnear  properties  of  sur- 
rounding objects." 

"A  child  has  found  a  pebble,  a  fragment  of 
lime  or  chalk.  In  order  to  determine  by  experi- 
ment its  properties,  he  has  rubbed  it  on  a  board 
near  by,  and  has  discovered  its  property  of  im- 
parting colour.  See  how  he  delights  in  the  newly 
discovered  property,  how  busily  he  makes  use  of 
it !  .  .  .  but  soon  he  begins  to  find  pleasure  in  the 
winding,  straight,  curved,  and  other  forms  that 
appear.  These  linear  phenomena  direct  his  atten- 
tion to  the  linear  properties  of  surrounding 
objects.  Now  the  head  becomes  a  circle,  and  now 
the  circular  line  represents  the  head,  the  elliptical 
curve  connected  with  it  represents  the  body ; 
arms  and  legs  appear  as  straight  or  broken  lines, 
and  these  again  represent  arms  and  legs ;  the 
fingers  he  sees  as  straight  lines  meeting  in  a 
common  point,  and  lines  so  connected  are,  for  the 
busy  child,  again  hands  and  fingers ;  the  eyes 
he  sees  as  dots,  and  these  again  represent  eyes  ; 
and  thus  a  new  world  opens  within  and  without. 
For  what  man  tries  to  represent,  that  he  begins 
to  understand." — E.,  p.  75. 

I  have  watched  a  child  go  through  the  process 
of  discovering  "linear  phenomena,"  just  as  Froebel 
describes  it,  no  doubt  from  his  own  observation.  A 
boy  of  three,  having  folded  a  piece  of  paper  for  the 
roof  of  a  house,  was  colouring  it,  by  rubbing  on  red 
chalk,  when  he  called  out,  "Oh!  I'm  making  lines." 
The  other  children  went  on  rubbing,  but  Phil  made 
"lines"  till  the  roof  was  finished. 

But  Froebel  does  not  leave  unnoticed  the  fact  that 
the  very  earliest  "drawing"   is  an  outgrowth  of  the 


104   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

muscular  action  to  which  his  instinct  of  activity  is 
urged  by  the  stimulus  of  contact. 

"Would  you  know  how  to  lead  the  child  in 
this  matter  ?  Watch  him,  he  will  teach  you  what 
to  do.  See  !  he  is  tracing  the  table  by  passing 
his  fingers  along  its  edges  and  outlines  as  far  as 
he  can  reach,  he  is  sketching  the  object  on  itself. 
This  is  the  first  and  the  safest  step  by  which  he 
becomes  aware  of  the  outlines  and  forms  of 
objects.  In  this  way  he  sketches  and  so  studies 
the  chair,  the  bench,  the  window.  But  soon  he 
advances.  He  draws  lines  across  the  four- 
cornered  bit  of  board,  across  the  leaf  of  the  table, 
or  the  seat  of  the  chair,  in  the  dim  anticipation 
that  so  he  can  retain  the  forms  and  relations  of 
the  surfaces.  Now,  already  he  draws  the  form 
diminished. 

"  See  !  there  the  child  has  drawn  table,  chair 
and  bench  on  a  leaf  of  the  table.  Do  you  not 
see  how  he  spontaneously  trained  himself  for 
this  ?  Objects  which  he  could  move,  which  were 
in  sight,  he  laid  on  the  board,  and  drew  their  form 
on  the  plane  surface,  following  the  boundaries  of 
the  objects  with  his  hands.  Soon  scissors  and 
boxes,  and  later  leaves  and  twigs,  even  his  own 
hand  and  the  shadows  of  objects  will  thus  be 
copied. 

"Much  is  developed  in  the  child  by  this  action, 
more  than  it  is  possible  to  express — a  clear  com- 
prehension of  form,  the  possibility  of  representing 
the  form  separate  from  the  object,  the  possibility 
of  retaining  the  form  as  such,  and  the  strengthen- 
ing and  fitting  of  hand  and  arm  for  the  free  repre- 
sentation of  form." — E.y  p.  77. 

Here,  perhaps,  is  the  right  place  to  introduce  what 


INSTINCT  AND  INSTINCTS  105 

Froebel  had  to  say  about  the  artistic  tendencies  of 
children,  since  Art,  to  him,  is  always  expression. 

"Absolutely  nothing  can  appear,  nothing  visi- 
ble and  sensible  can  come  forth,  that  does  not 
hold  within  itself  the  living  spirit ;  that  does  not 
bear  upon  its  surface  the  imprint  of  the  living 
spirit  of  the  being  by  whom  it  has  been  produced, 
and  to  whom  it  owes  its  existence.  And  this  is 
true  of  the  work  of  every  human  being — from 
the  highest  artist  to  the  meanest  labourer — as 
well  as  of  the  works  of  God,  which  are  Nature, 
the  creation,  and  all  created  things." — £?.,  P'  153. 

So,  when  Froebel  comes  to  speak  of  art  as  a  subject 
of  the  school  curriculum  he  says:  "Here,  art  will  be 
considered  only  as  the  pure  representation  of  the  inner 
.  .  .  differentiated  according  to  the  material  it  uses, 
whether  motion,  as  such,  audible  in  sound,  or  visible 
in  lines,  surfaces  and  colours,  or  massive"  ;  and  he 
adds  : 

"We  noticed  that  even  at  an  earlier  stage 
children  have  the  desire  to  draw,  but  the  desire 
also  to  express  ideas  by  modeUing  and  colouring 
is  frequently  found  at  this  earlier  stage  of  child- 
hood, certainly  at  the  very  beginning  of  the. stage 
of  boyhood  (from  six  years  old).  This  proves 
that  art  and  appreciation  of  art  constitute  a  general 
capacity  or  talent  of  man,  and  should  'be  cared  for 
early,  at  latest  in  boyhood. 

"This  does  not  imply  that  the  boy  is  to  devote 
himself  chiefly  to  art,  and  is  to  become  an  artist ; 
but  that  he  should  be  enabled  to  understand  and 
appreciate  true  works  of  art."  At  the  same 
time,  a  true  education  will  guard  him  from  the 
error  of  claiming  to  be  an  artist  unless  there  is 
in  him  the  true  artistic  calling." — £.,  p.  227. 


106   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

In  connection  with  the  mother's  instinctive  rhyth- 
mic crooning  and  dandhng  of  the  infant,  Froebel  says  : 

"Thus  the  genuine  natural  mother  cautiously 
follows  in  all  directions  the  slowly  developing  all- 
sided  life  of  the  child.  Others  suppose  him  to  be 
empty.  .  .  .  Thus  those  means  of  cultivation  that 
lead  so  simply  and  naturally  to  the  development 
of  rhythm  are  lost.  .  .  .  Nevertheless  an  early 
development  of  rhythmic  movement  would  prove 
most  wholesome.  .  .  .  Even  very  small  children, 
in  moments  of  quiet,  and  particularly  when  going 
to  sleep,  will  hum  little  strains  of  songs  they  have 
heard  ;  and  this  should  be  heeded  and  developed 
as  the  first  germ  of  future  growth  in  melody  and 
song.  Undoubtedly  this  would  soon  lead  in  chil- 
dren to  a  spontaneity  such  as  is  shown  by  children 
in  the  use  of  speech." — E.,  p.  71. 

In  the  "  Mother  Songs,"  too,  Froebel  writes  : 

"Hence  it  is  so  very  important  to  rouse  at 
least  the  germs  of  all  this  (the  perceiving  of  har- 
mony in  sound  and  form  and  colour)  early  in  a 
human  being.  If  they  do  not  develop  and  take 
shape  as  independent  formations  in  life,  they  at 
least  teach  how  to  understand  and  recognize 
those  of  other  people.  This  is  life-gain  enough. 
It  makes  a  person's  life  richer — richer  by  the 
lives  of  others.  And  how  could  our  earthly  life 
be  long  enough  to  form  our  being  with  equal 
perfection  on  all  sides.  We  can  only  do  it  by 
knowing  and  respectfully  recognizing  in  the 
mirror  of  the  lives  of  others  what  we  should  like 
to  carry  out  ourselves.  And  this  is  as  it  should 
be,  for  it  is  by  means  of  knowledge,  regard  for 
and    respectful    recognition    of    others,    that    the 


INSTINCT  AND  INSTINCTS  107 

whole  of  humanity  ought  to  represent  the  whole 
of  a  God-like  harmonious  human  being." — M., 
p.  162. 

In  what  he  says  of  the  Interest  in  Stories,  Froebel 
again  seems  to  show  deeper  insight  than  either  Mr. 
Eby  or  Professor  Kirkpatrick.  Mr.  McDougall  does 
not  touch  upon  the  subject.  It  is  still  the  outcome 
of  the  child's  instinctive  desire  to  understand  himself 
and  his  surroundings.  Froebel  says  very  truly  that 
he  can  only  understand  others  in  proportion  as  he 
understands  himself,  and  can  only  learn  to  under- 
stand himself,  his  own  life,  by  comparing  it  with  that 
of  others.  The  desire  for  stories  is  "a  striving,  a 
longing,  a  demand  of  the  mind "  (ein  Streben,  cine 
Sehnsucht,  eine  Forderung  des  Gemiithes).  For  the 
little  one,  the  simplest  story  of  the  mother  bird  feeding 
her  young  ones  is  a  help  to  the  understanding  of  his 
own  life,  makes  his  own  life  objective  ;  the  mother's 
"effective  story  will  hold  up  a  looking-glass  to  the 
child,  especially  if  it  be  told  at  the  right  time."  For 
the  boy  the  story  does  the  same  and  also  answers  to 
his  instinctive  demand  not  only  to  understand  the 
present,  but  the  past : 

"It  is  the  innermost  desire  and  need  of  a 
vigorous,  genuine  boy  to  understand  his  own  life, 
to  get  a  knowledge  of  its  nature,  its  origin  and 
outcome.  Only  the  study  of  the  life  of  others 
can  furnish  such  points  of  comparison  with  the 
life  he  himself  has  experienced.  In  these  the 
boy,  endowed  with  an  active  life  of  his  own,  can 
view  the  latter  as  in  a  mirror  and  learn  to  appre- 
ciate its  value.  This  is  the  chief  reason  why  boys 
are  so  fond  of  stories,  legends  and  tales  ;  the  more 
so  when  these  are  told  as  having  actually  occurred 
at   some  time,   or   as   lying   within   the   reach   of 


108   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

probability,  for  which,  however,  there  are  scarcely 
any  limits  for  a  boy." — E.,  p.  305. 

"The  existence  of  the  present  teaches  him  the 
existence  of  the  past.  That,  which  was  before  he 
was,  he  would  know  ;  he  would  know  the  reason, 
the  past  cause  of  what  now  is.  Who  fails  to 
remember  the  keen  desire  that  filled  his  heart 
when  he  beheld  old  walls,  and  towers,  ruins, 
monuments  and  columns  on  hill  and  the  roadside 
— to  hear  others  give  accounts  of  these  things, 
their  times  and  causes  .  .  .  thus  is  developed  the 
desire  and  craving  for  tales,  legends,  for  all  kinds 
of  stories,  and  later  for  historical  accounts." — 
E.,  p.  115. 

Even  the  fairy  story  seems  to  have  found  its 
legitimate  place  under  the  same  heading,  the  instinct 
for  investigation.  Froebel  sees  that  it  covers  for  the 
little  child  the  ground  occupied  by  myth  in  the  primi- 
tive consciousness.  It  explains  the  otherwise  inex- 
plicable. 

"Even  the  present  in  which  the  boy  lives  still 
contains  much  that  at  this  period  of  development 
he  cannot  interpret,  and  yet  would  like  to  inter- 
pret ;  much  that  seems  to  him  dumb,  and  which 
he  would  fain  have  speak  ;  .  .  .  and  thus  there  is 
developed  in  him  the  intense  desire  for  fables  and 
fairy  tales  which  impart  language  and  reason  to 
speechless  things — the  one  within,  the  other 
beyond  the  limits  of  human  relations.  Surely  all 
must  have  noticed  this  if  they  have  given  more 
than  superficial  attention  to  the  life  of  boys  at 
this  age.  Similarly,  they  must  have  noticed  that 
if  the  boy's  desire  is  not  gratified  by  those  around 
him,  he  will  spontaneously  hit  upon  the  invention 
and  presentation  of  fairy  tales,  and  either  work 


INSTINCT  AND  INSTINCTS  109 

them  out  in  his  own  mind  or  entertain  his  com- 
panions with  them.  These  fairy  tales  and  stories 
will  then  very  clearly  reveal  to  the  observer  what 
is  going  on  in  the  innermost  mind  of  the  boy, 
though  doubtless  the  latter  may  not  himself  be 
conscious  of  it." — E.,  p.  116. 

"The  child,  like  the  man,  would  like  to  learn 
the  significance  of  what  happens  around  him. 
This  is  the  foundation  of  the  Greek  choruses, 
especially  in  tragedy.  This,  too,  is  the  foundation 
of  very  many  productions  in  the  realms  of  legends 
and  fairy  tales,  and  is  indeed  the  cause  of  many 
phenomena  in  actual  history.  This  is  the  result 
of  the  deeply-rooted  consciousness,  the  deeply 
slumbering  premonition  of  being  surrounded  by 
that  which  is  higher  and  more  conscious  than 
ourselves." — P.,  p.  146. 

The  outcome  of  the  instinct  of  construction,  which 
is  also  so  closely  connected  with  the  instinct  of  in- 
vestigation, is  that  "sense  of  power"  which  is  self- 
consciousness.  Without  this  there  can  be  no  self- 
determination,  but,  says  Froebel,  "the  sense  of  power 
must  precede  its  cultivation."  With  this  growing 
personality,  too,  Froebel  connects  what  is  called  the 
instinct  of  Acquisition,  which  begins  when  the  little 
child  "painfully  secures  his  bit  of  straw,"  and  the  boy 
of  six  to  eight  shows  "the  tendency  to  appropriate 
what  he  finds  in  the  darkness  of  cave  and  forest." 

"The  same  tendency  that  urges  the  boy  to 
seek  knowledge  on  the  mountain  and  in  the 
valley,  attracts  and  holds  him  to  the  plain.  Here 
he  makes  a  garden,  there  he  represents  the  course 
of  the  river,  and  studies  the  effect  of  the  presence 
of  water  .  .  .  here  he  has  dammed  up  the  water 
to  form  a  pool.  .  .  .  He  is  particularly  fond  of 


110   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

bus5n[ng  himself  with  clear  running  water  and 
with  plastic  materials.  In  these  the  boy  who 
seeks  self-knowledge  beholds  his  soul  as  in  a 
mirror.  These  employments  are  to  him  an 
element  of  his  life,  for  now,  because  of  a  pre- 
viously acquired  sense  of  power  he  seeks  to 
control  and  master  new  material.  Everything 
must  submit  to  his  constructive  instinct ;  there 
in  that  heap  of  earth  he  digs  a  cellar  and  on  it 
he  places  a  garden  and  a  bench.  Boards, 
branches  and  poles  must  be  made  into  a  hut, 
the  deep,  fresh  snow  must  be  rolled  up  to  form 
the  walls  and  ramparts  of  a  fort,  and  the  rough 
stones  on  the  hill  are  heaped  together  to  form  a 
castle.  .  .  .  And  thus  each  one  soon  forms  for 
himself  his  own  world  ;  for  the  feeling  of  his  own 
power  requires  and  conditions  also  the  possession 
of  his  own  space  and  his  own  material  belonging 
exclusively  to  him.  Whether  his  kingdom,  his 
province,  his  estate,  as  it  were,  be  a  corner  of 
the  yard,  or  of  the  house,  or  whether  it  be  the 
space  of  a  box,  the  human  being  must  have  at 
this  stage  an  external  point  to  which  he  refers 
all  his  activities,  and  this  is  best  chosen  and 
provided  by  himself," — E.,  p.  106. 

And  here,  just  when  he  is  emphasizing  the  fast 
developing  consciousness  of  self,  with  its  demand  for 
its  own  space  and  its  own  material,  Froebel  brings  out 
the  strength  of  the  social  instinct  in  boyhood.  It  is 
here  that  he  points  out  that  this  effort  to  construct 
has  a  uniting,  not  a  separating,  tendency.  Continuous 
with  the  last  quotation  comes  : 

"When  the  space  to  be  filled  is  extensive, 
when  the  province  to  be  ruled  is  large,  when  the 
whole   to   be   represented   is   composed   of   many 


INSTINCT  AND  INSTINCTS  111 

parts,  then  brotherly  union  of  those  who  are  of 
one  mind  is  displayed.  And  when  those  who  are 
of  one  mind  meet  and  put  their  hearts  into  the 
same  effort,  then  either  the  work  already  begun 
is  extended  or  begun  again  as  a  joint  production." 
—E.,  p.  107. 

Froebel  describes  such  joint  work  first  in  the 
Keilhau  schoolroom — his  own  phrase  is  "education 
room" — where  the  younger  boys  are  using  building 
blocks,  sand,  sawdust,  and  moss,  which  they  have 
brought  in  from  the  forest  around  and  then  among 
the  older  boys. 

"Down  yonder  by  the  brook,  how  busy  are 
the  older  boys  with  their  work  !  They  have  made 
canals  with  locks,  bridges  and  seaports,  dams 
and  mills,  each  undisturbed  by  the  others.  But 
now  the  water  is  to  be  used  to  carry  ships  from 
one  level  to  another,  and  now,  at  every  stage, 
each  boy  asserts  his  own  rights  while  recognizing 
the  rights  of  others.  How  can  they  settle  their 
difficulties  ?  Only  by  making  agreements,  and 
so,  like  States,  they  bind  themselves  by  strict 
treaties."— E.,  p.  111. 

Of  games  of  physical  movement,  running,  wrest- 
ling, etc.,  Froebel  writes  : 

"It  is  the  sense  of  power,  the  sense  of  its 
increase,  both  as  an  individual  and  as  a  member 
of  a  group,  that  fills  the  boy  with  joy,  in  these 
games.  .  .  .  The  boy  tries  to  see  himself  in  his 
companions,  to  weigh  and  measure  himself  by 
them,  to  find  and  know  himself  by  their  help. 
Thus  the  games  directly  influence  and  educate  the 
boy  for  life,  they  awake  and  cultivate  many  civic 
and  moral  virtues,     Every  town  should  have  its 


112   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

common  playground  for  the  boys.  Glorious 
would  be  the  results  from  this  for  the  entire  com- 
munity. For  at  this  stage  of  development  games 
whenever  possible  are  held  in  common,  thus 
developing  the  sense  of  community  and  the  laws 
and  requirements  of  a  community." — E.,  p.  113. 

Froebel  had  studied  boys  to  some  purpose,  and  he 
tells  us  not,  however,  to  expect  too  much  in  the  way 
of  social  virtues.  Justice,  self-control,  honesty, 
courage  and  "severe  criticism  of  pleasant  indolence" 
may  be  expected,  but  mutual  forbearance  and  con- 
sideration for  those  who  are  weaker  or  less  familiar 
with  the  game,  though  not  entirely  lacking,  are  referred 
to  as  "the  more  delicate  blossoms"  of  the  playground. 
It  is  here  that  he  says  with  wise  moderation,  "The 
feeling  of  power  must  precede  its  cultivation." 

The  social  instinct  does  not  suddenly  spring  into 
existence  in  boyhood.  It  has  its  roots  in  what  Froebel 
calls  the  Feeling  of  Community  which  unites  the  child 
first  with  the  mother,  then  with  father,  brothers  and 
sisters. 

"  We  cannot  deny  that  there  is  at  present  among 
children  and  boys  little  gentleness,  mutual  forbear- 
ance .  .  .  indeed,  there  is  much  egotism,  unfriend- 
liness and  roughness.  This  is  clearly  due  not  only 
to  the  absence  of  early  cultivation  of  the  feeling 
of  community,  but  this  sympathy  between  parents 
and  children  is  too  often  disturbed,  yes  even 
annihilated." — E.,  p.  119. 

The  sympathy  of  the  little  child  ought  to  be 
trained  and  is  trained  by  the  wise  mother  always 
through  action. 

"Mother  love  seeks  to  awaken  and  to 
interpret  the  feeling  of  community,  which  is  so 


INSTINCT  AND  INSTINCTS  113 

important,  between  the  child  and  the  father, 
brother  and  sister,  saying  while  she  draws  the 
child's  little  hand  caressingly  across  the  face  of 
the  father  or  of  the  little  sister,  'Love  the  dear 
father — ^the  little  sister.'  " — E.,  p.  69. 

In  the  Finger  Play  called  "The  Nest,"  Froebel 
tells  the  mother : 

"The  way  lies  through  our  imaginative,  tender 
and  emotional  observation  of  Nature  and  of  man's 
life,  through  the  child's  taking  their  meaning  into 
his  own  heart  and  expressing  by  representation 
what  he  thus  takes  in.  .  .  .  The  child's  sym- 
pathy is  roused  by  the  young  creatures'  neces- 
sities more  than  by  anything,  and  chiefly  by  their 
nakedness  and  softness." — M.,  p.  149. 

And  the  action  which  fosters  the  growth  of  sym- 
pathy is  not  to  be  merely  representative ;  The  Garden 
Song  has  this  motto  : 

"If  your  child's  to  love  and  cherish 
Life  that  needs  him  day-by-day, 
Give  him  things  to  tend  that  perish 
If  he  ever  stays  away." — M.,  p.  84. 

It  is  because  "the  desire  for  unity  is  the  basis  of 
all  true  human  development"  that  the  child  is  to  be 
encouraged  to  help  in  the  work  he  sees  going  on  around 
him. 

"Family,  family — let  us  say  it  openly  and 
plainly — you  are  more  than  School  and  Church, 
and  therefore  more  than  all  else  that  necessity 
may  have  called  into  being  for  the  protection  of 
right  and  property  .  .  .  without  you,  what  are 
Altar  and  Church  ?  .  .  .  Therefore,  Mother,  in  the 
little  finger  game,  teach  your  child  some  notion 


114   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

of  the  nature  of  a  whole,  especially  of  a  family- 
whole."— M.,  p.  159. 

"We  have  not  yet  touched  nor  even  considered 
an  important  side  of  child-life,  the  side  of  asso- 
•  ciation  with  father  and  mother  in  their  domestic 
duties,  in  the  duties  of  their  calling.  .  .  .  (£?., 
p.  84).  Do  not  let  the  urgency  of  your  business 
tempt  you  to  say,  'Go  away,  you  only  hinder 
me.'  .  .  .  After  a  third  rebuff  of  this  kind 
scarcely  any  child  will  again  propose  to  help  and 
share  the  work." — E.,  p.  99. 

It  is  an  essential  part  of  the  Kindergarten  to  con- 
sider the  child  as  a  member  of  the  human  family.  It 
is  described  in  one  place  as  : 

"An  establishment  for  training  quite  young 
children,  in  their  first  stage  of  intellectual  develop- 
ment, where  their  training  and  instruction  shall 
be  based  upon  their  own  free  action  or  spon- 
taneity, acting  under  proper  rules  .  .  .  such  rules 
as  are  in  fact  discovered  by  the  actual  observa- 
tion of  children  when  associated  in  companies. 
(L.,  p.  251).  .  .  .  Practice  in  combined  games 
for  many  children,  whicb  will  train  the  child,  by 
his  very  nature  eager  for  companionship,  in  the 
habit  of  association  with  comrades,  that  is,  in 
good  fellowship  and  all  that  this  implies." — 
L.,  p,  252. 

Among  his  Group  Instincts  Mr.  Kirkpatrick  men- 
tions the  Love  of  Approbation,  and  this  receives 
special  attention  from  Froebel  at  a  surprisingly  early 
stage.  It  is  in  the  "Mother  Songs,"  in  connection 
with  his  adaptation  of  an  old  German  nursery  rhyme 
about  knights  who  come  to  visit  "a  good  child,"  that 
Froebel  tells  the  mother  that : 


INSTINCT  AND  INSTINCTS  115 

"A  new  life  stage  has  begun,  and  you,  dear 
Mother,  must  use  your  best  and  most  watchful 
care,  when  first  the  child  listens  to  a  stranger." 

In  the  same  connection  he  writes  : 

"The  child  must  be  roused  to  good  by  incli- 
nation, love  and  respect,  through  the  opinion  of 
others  around  him,  and  all  this  must  be  streng- 
thened and  developed.  .  .  .  When,  therefore, 
Mother,  observation  as  to  the  judgment  of  others 
awakes  in  your  child — when,  separating  himself 
and  on  the  watch  he  brings  himself  before  the 
judgment  of  others,  then  you  really  have  a  double 
task  to  perform.  .  .  ." — ilf.,  p.  190. 

The  Love  of  Approbation  cannot  be  separated  from 
what  Mr.  Kirkpatrick  calls  the  Regulative,  i.e.  the 
Moral  and  Religious  Instincts,  for  it  is  both  social 
and  regulative,  and  in  the  social  instincts  Froebel 
sees  the  foundation  of  the  religious  instincts  or  ten- 
dencies, to  which  we  shall  come  presently.  But  he 
also  notes  a  "sense  of  order,"  as  Mr.  Sully  does  in  his 
dehghtful  "Studies  of  Childhood,"  and  this  he  traces 
back  to  very  early  beginnings,  connecting  it  with  the 
tendency  towards  rhythm. 

"That  disorder  and  rough  wilfulness  may 
never  enter  the  games,  it  is  a  good  plan  wherever 
it  is  possible  to  accompany  each  change  in  the 
play  by  rhyme  and  song ;  so  that  the  latent  sense 
of  rhythm  and  song,  and  above  all  the  sense  of 
order  in  the  human  being  and  child,  may  be  aroused 
and  strengthened  to  an  impulse  for  social  co- 
operation."— P.,  p.  267. 

One  of  the  earhest  Mother  Plays,  "Tic-tac,"  deals 
with  rhythmic  movement,  and  in  ''  The  Education  of 
Man"    Froebel    takes    the    begimiing    of    "conscious 


116   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

control"  still  further  back.  His  ideal  mother  fosters 
"all-sided  life,"  that  is,  she  fosters  the  cognitive, 
emotional  and  conative,  the  first  by  calling  the  child's 
attention  to  his  own  body  and  his  immediate  sur- 
roundings, and  the  second  by  "seeking  to  awaken  and 
to  interpret  the  feeling  of  community  between  the 
child  and  the  father,  brother  and  sister,"  and  Froebel 
goes  on  : 

"In  addition  to  the  sense  of  community  as 
such,  the  germ  of  so  much  glorious  development, 
the  mother's  love  seeks  also  through  movements 
to  lead  the  child  to  feel  his  own  inner  life.  By 
regular  rhythmic  movements — and  this  is  of 
special  importance — she  brings  this  life  within  the 
child's  conscious  control  when  she  dandles  him 
up  and  down  on  her  hand  or  arm  in  rhythmic 
movements  and  to  rhythmic  sounds.  Thus  the 
genuine  natural  mother  cautiously  follows  in  all 
directions  the  slowly  developing  all-sided  life  in 
the  child,  strengthening  and  arousing  to  ever 
greater  activity,  and  developing  the  all-sided  life 
within.  Others  suppose  the  child  to  be  empty 
and  wish  to  inoculate  him  with  life,  and  thus 
make  him  as  empty  as  they  think  him  to  be." — 
E.,  p.  69. 

It  is  surprising  to  find  that  Froebel, 
writing  so  early,  has  nothing  at  all  resembling  any 
special  "moral  faculty."  His  references  to  "Con- 
science" are  decidedly  interesting,  though  given  in 
quaint  connection  with  games  and  rhymes  for  mere 
babes.  He  asks  why  the  "Where's  Baby?"  game 
gives  such  delight,  and  shows  his  psychological  insight 
in  the  answer  he  finds,  viz.  that  it  is  the  feeling  or 
recognition  of  self,  of  personality,  which  gives  such 
joy. 


INSTINCT  AND  INSTINCTS  117 

"Why,  now,  is  my  child  so  happy  over  the 
hiding  game  ?  It  is  the  feeling  of  Personality 
which  already  so  delights  the  child,  it  is  the  feeling 
of  recognition  of  his  own  self."* 

The  game  which  follows  this  repeats  the  hiding 
experience,  but  this  time  with  the  cry  of  "cuckoo," 
from  some  one  unseen,  and  this  is  likened  to  the  con- 
science call,  which  is  described  as  "consciousness  of 
union  in  separation  and  of  separateness,  that  is  per- 
sonality, in  union." — M.,  p.  98. 

"In  'Where's  Baby  Been  ?  '  parting  and  union 
seem  more  separate,  as  though  in  order  that  each 
may  become  more  and  more  clearly  conscious  of 
itself;  in  'Cuckoo,'  parting  and  union  are,  as  it 
were,  joined.  It  is  parting  in  union  and  union  in 
parting  that  makes  'Cuckoo'  such  a  peculiar 
game  and  so  delightful  to  a  child.  But  con- 
sciousness of  union  in  separation,  and  of  separate- 
ness— ^that  is  personality — in  union,  is  also  the 
essence,  the  deep  foundation  of  conscience." — 
M.,  p.  197. 

Mr.  Kirkpatrick's  second  Regulative  instinct  or 
tendency  is  that  of  Religion,  but  Froebel  again,  like 
Mr.  McDougall,  finds  that  Religion  has  its  roots  in 
an  instinct  "not  specifically  religious, "'j'  viz.  in  the 
Social  Instinct.  He  says  this  in  "The  Education  of 
Man"  in  the  plainest  of  terms. 

"This  feeling  of  Community  first  uniting  the 
child   with   father,   mother,   brothers   and   sisters, 

*  In  the  well-known  translation  by  F.  and  E.  Lord  : 
"  You  wonder  why  a  game  at  hide-and-seek 
Brings  a  glad  flush  of  joy  to  baby's  cheek  ? 
The  sense  of  his  own  personality 
Is  causing  all  this  joy  that  you  can  see 
When  people  call  him,  say,  *  Where's  Baby  been  ? ' 
He  feels  that  it  is  he,  himself,  they  mean." 
t  "  Social  Psychology,"  p.  89. 


118   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

and  resting  on  a  higher  spiritual  unity,  to  which 
later  on  is  added  the  discovery  that  father,  mother, 
brothers  and  sisters,  human  beings  in  general, 
feel  and  know  themselves  to  be  in  community  and 
unity  with  a  higher  principle — with  humanity, 
with  God — ^this  is  the  very  first  germ,  the  very  first 
beginning  of  all  true  religious  spirit,  of  all  genuine 
yearning  for  unhindered  unification  with  the 
Eternal,  with  God."— E.,  p.  25. 

It  seems  quite  in  accordance  with  this  that  Froebel 
should  write  that  he  likes  better  the  German  word 
Gott-einigkeit — union  with  God — than  the  foreign  word 
religion  ;  and  also  that  he  should  speak  of  "  developing 
the  sense  of  kinship  with  man  in  every  child,  and  the 
sense  of  kinship  with  God  in  every  man."  So,  in  his 
"  Mother  Songs,"  he  tells  the  mother  to  give  her  child 
duties  to  perform,  that  so  he  may  "feel  his  kinship" 
with  her  : 

"Every  age,  even  the  age  of  childhood,  has 
something  to  cherish  that  is  plain,  and  from 
doing  so  no  exemption  can  be  procured  ;  it  has 
therefore  its  duties.  Happy  is  it  for  a  child  if 
he  be  led  to  deal  with  them  adequately,  and 
for  the  present  unconsciously.  Duties  are  not 
burdens.  .  .  .  Fulfilment  of  duty  strengthens  body 
and  mind,  and  the  consciousness  of  duty  done 
gives  independence ;  even  a  child  feels  this. 
See,  Mother,  how  happy  your  child  is  in  feeling 
he  has  done  his  small  duties.  He  already  feels  his 
kinship  with  you  thereby." — M.,  p.  174. 

There  is  never  a  separation  between  Morality  and 
Religion  : 

"Religion  without  industry,  without  work,  is 
liable    to    be    lost    in    empty    dreams,    worthless 


INSTINCT  AND  INSTINCTS  119 

visions,  idle  fancies.  Similarly,  work  or  industry 
without  religion  degrades  man  into  a  beast  of 
burden,  a  machine.  Work  and  religion  must  be 
simultaneous ;  for  God,  the  Eternal  has  been 
creating  from  all  eternity.  .  .  .  Where  religion, 
industry  and  self-control,  the  truly  undivided 
trinity  rule,  there  indeed  is  heaven  upon  earth." 
—E.,  p.  35. 

There  is  only  one  other  instinct  mentioned  by 
Froebel,  and  that  is  the  parental,  or,  rather,  the 
maternal  instinct.  He  is  eager  that  this  should  be 
recognized  as  an  instinct,  but  he  is  equally  eager  that, 
like  other  human  instincts,  its  action  should  be  deter- 
mined by  intelligence.  In  describing  the  "Plan"  for 
his  Kindergarten,  Froebel  pleads  for  more  careful 
observation  of  the  child  and  his  relationships,  and 
says  that  "thereby"  : 

"Deeper  insight  will  be  gained  into  the  mean- 
ing and  importance  of  the  child's  actions  and 
outward  manifestations  and  also  into  the  way  of 
dealing  with  children  which  has  been  evolved 
naturally  by  the  mother  led  by  her  pure  maternal 
instinct."— L.,  p.  248. 

As  to  the  early  beginnings  of  the  instinct  in  the 
little  girl  we  can  find  just  a  few  references,  sufficient 
to  show  that  it  did  not  pass  unnoticed,  and  it  seems 
here  legitimate  to  say  that  "  the  girl  anticipates  her 
destiny,"  as  Froebel  does  in  speaking  of  doll-play, 
though  certainly  this  does  not  cover  all  such  play : 

"The  joy  of  the  child  in  its  doll  has  a  far  deeper 
human  foundation  than  is  generally  supposed — a 
foundation  by  no  means  resting  merely  in  the 
external  resemblance  .  .  .  the  girl  anticipates  her 
destiny — ^to  foster  Nature  and  life." — P.,  p.  98. 


120   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

The  boy's  destiny  is  "to  penetrate  and  rule  Nature," 
so  in  the  "Mother  Songs"  Froebel  describes  how  the 
boy  is  "cowering  that  no  sign  of  Hfe  in  the  chicken 
family  may  escape  him,  while  the  girl  starts  up,  all  her 
care  of  things  stirred,  in  order  to  beckon  or  call  the  hen 
or  cock  not  to  forget  their  chickens." — M.,  p.  143. 

In  all  his  writings,  Froebel  refers  to  how  much  he 
has  learned  from  mothers  :  "It  was  in  watching  your 
clever  mother-doings  that  I  learnt."  But,  as  he  says 
of  himself,  it  was  "a  necessary  part  of  me  to  be 
irresistibly  driven  to  search  out  the  ultimate  or  primary 
cause  of  every  fact  of  life,"  and  so  he  writes  : 

"The  natural  mother  does  all  this  instinctively 
without  instruction  or  direction  ;  but  this  is  not 
enough  :  it  is  needful  that  she  should  do  it  con- 
sciously, as  a  conscious  being  acting  upon  another 
which  is  growing  into  consciousness,  and  con- 
sciously tending  toward  the  continuous  develop- 
ment of  the  human  being." — E.,  p.  64. 

"Motherly  and  womanly  instinct  does  much 
of  its  own  accord ;  but  it  often  makes  mistakes." 
—L.,  p.  63. 

"Women's  work  in  education  must  be  based 
not  upon  natural  instinct,  so  often  perverted  or 
misunderstood,  but  upon  intelligent  knowledge. 
.  .  .  Some  mothers  level  the  taunt  at  me  that 
I,  a  man,  understanding  nothing  of  a  mother's 
instinct,  should  dare  to  presume  to  instruct 
mothers  in  their  dealings  with  their  own  children. 
.  .  .  How  could  such  a  thought  enter  my  head 
as  to  attempt  anything  against  the  course  of 
Nature?  My  whole  strength  is  exerted  on  the 
contrary,  to  the  work  of  getting  the  natural  in- 
stinct and  its  tendencies  more  rightly  understood, 
and   more   acknowledged ;     so   that   women   may 


INSTINCT  AND  INSTINCTS  121 

follow  its  leadings  as  truly  as  possible  aided  by 
the  higher  light  of  intelligent  comprehension,  and 
yet  at  the  same  time  in  all  freedom,  and  with 
complete  individuality." — L.,  p.  259. 

So,  in  what  he  says  of  this  last  instinct,  Froebel 
is  faithful  to  what  he  has  said  of  all  human  instincts. 

"Man  shall  assuredly  not  neglect  his  natural 
instincts,  still  less  abandon  them,  but  he  must 
ennoble  them  through  his  intelligence  and  purify 
them  through  his  reason." 


CHAPTER  VII 

Play  and  Its  Relation  to  Work 

'npO  write  even  a  small  book  on  Froebel  without 
directly  touching  on  the  subject  of  play  would 
be  impossible,  though  in  dealing  with  instincts  and 
the  carrying  out  of  natural  activities  we  have 
necessarily  considered  much  that  comes  under  this 
heading. 

On  the  educative  value  of  play,  Froebel  is  recog- 
nizedly  original,  and  his  views  have  influenced  and  are 
influencing  schools  for  young  children  in  most  civilized 
countries.  Indeed,  it  would  be  difficult  to  show  that 
modern  writers  on  play,  in  spite  of  the  scientific 
thoroughness  of  their  investigations,  classifications  and 
terminology,  have  made  much  advance  upon  Froebel' s 
theories.  Rather  do  they  tend  to  show  how  remark- 
able was  his  insight,  and  how  surprisingly  well  grounded 
his  theories. 

Nothing,  however,  has  yet  been  said  as  to  the 
relation  of  play  to  work,  no  direct  definition  has  yet 
been  given,  nor  has  any  reference  been  made  to  the 
now  familiar  theories  of  play. 

In  Froebel' s  day,  these,  as  clearly  formulated 
theories,  were  non-existent.  His  work  was  that  of  a 
pioneer,  and  his  theory  might  have  been  called  that  of 
"Preparation  through  Recapitulation."  He  would, 
however,  have  allowed  that  play  is  sometimes,  though 
not  always,  recreative,  and  he  makes  clear  the  necessity 


PLAY  AND  ITS  RELATION  TO  WORK        128 

for  what  he  calls  "healthy  vital  energy"  (gesunden 
Lebensmuthe),  but  he  would  never  have  called  this 
mere  "surplus  energy,"  because  he  thought  it  was  not 
more  than  was  required  : 

"The  genuine  schoolboy  should  be  full  of  life 
and  spirit,  strong  in  body  and  mind.  .  .  .  Would 
that,  in  judging  the  power  of  children  and  boys, 
we  might  never  forget  the  words  of  one  of  our 
greatest  German  writers  :  that  there  is  a  greater 
advance  from  the  infant  to  the  speaking  child  than 
there  is  from  the  schoolboy  to  a  Newton  !  Now, 
if  the  advance  is  greater,  the  power,  too,  must 
be  greater  ;   this  we  should  consider." — E.,  p.  134. 

Ebers,  the  Egyptologist,  tells  us  that  when  he  was 
a  boy  at  Keilhau  full  provision  was  made  for  this 
abounding  energy.  We  read  of  walks  long  and  short, 
of  botanizing  and  geologizing  rambles,  of  climbing 
trees  and  cliffs  for  birds'  eggs,  of  which  only  one  might 
be  taken  from  a  nest.  We  hear  of  Indian  games  out 
of  Fenimore  Cooper's  Leatherstocking  Tales,  of  classic 
and  other  dramas  on  winter  evenings,  and  of  Homeric 
battles,  which  Froebel,  he  says,  would  have  called 
"signs  of  creative  imagination  and  individual  life." 
There  was  swimming  and  skating  and  coasting  and 
"  the  spacious  wrestling  ground  with  the  shooting  stand 
and  the  gymnasium  for  every  spare  moment  of  the 
winter"  ;  and  a  piece  of  ground  "assigned  to  each 
pupil,  where  he  could  wield  spade  and  pickaxe,  roll 
stones,  sow  and  reap.  But  the  great  game  was  the 
Bergwacht,  where  the  boys,  divided  into  four  parties 
that  all  might  be  active,  actually  constructed,  and 
then  attacked  and  defended  stone  fortresses.  "How 
quickly,"  says  Ebers,  "we  learned  to  use  the  plummet, 
to  take  levels,  hew  the  stone  and  wield  the  axe."  The 
weapons   were   blunted   stakes.     It  was   forbidden   to 


124   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

touch  the  head,  but  it  was  a  point  of  honour  among 
the  boys  to  yield  as  prisoner  if  touched  by  the  pole, 
"and  what  self-denial  it  required  !  "  These  combats 
were  held  on  fine  Saturday  evenings,  and  when  all 
was  over  "the  women,"  probably  the  girls  of  the 
school  community,  had  lighted  fires  and  made  supper 
ready,  and  the  lads  slept  in  their  fortresses  while  two 
sentinels  marched  up  and  down,  relieved  every  half- 
hour.  On  the  Sunday  following  the  boys  were  not 
required  to  go  to  church,  "where  we  should  merely 
have  gone  to  sleep." 

It  has  frequently  been  brought  as  an  accusation 
against  Froebel  that  he  makes  no  clear  cut  distinction 
between  work  and  play,  and  that  is  true,  but  who 
nowadays  does  ?  Common  sense  would  probably 
join  hands  with  the  philosopher  in  saying  that  the 
feeling  of  freedom  is  the  chief  distinction  of  play  as 
opposed  to  work,  and  this  is  the  definition  quite  dis- 
tinctly given  by  Froebel.  The  definition  is  given  in 
his  detailed  enumeration  of  "the  various  directions  of 
an  active  life  of  instruction  and  education,"  and  after 
mentioning  religious  training,  cultivation  of  the  body 
as  the  means  of  expressing  mind,  the  study  of  Nature, 
etc.,  etc.,  he  comes  to  : 

"Play,  that  is,  spontaneous  representation  and 
exercise  of  every  kind." — E.,  p.  236. 

Another  definition  given  in  "  The  First  Action  of  a 
Child"  is: 

"Play,  which  is  independent  outward  expres- 
sion of  what  is  within." — P.,  p.  29. 

It  is  because  it  is  spontaneous  that  Froebel  calls 
play,  during  the  period  of  earliest  childhood,  when  the 
child  is  gaining  control  of  language,  "  the  highest  phase 
of  human  development  at  this  stage." 


PLAY  AND  ITS  RELATION  TO  WORK        125 

"Play  and  speaking  form  the  element  in  which 
the  child  lives  at  this  time.  .  .  .  Play  is  the  highest 
stage  of  child-development,  of  human  development 
at  this  stage,  because  it  is  spontaneous  (freithatige) 
representation  of  the  inner,  representation  of  the 
inner  out  of  the  need  and  desire  of  the  inner 
itself.  This  is  implied  in  the  very  word  Play." — 
E.,  p.  34. 

For  modern  views  on  play  we  turn  to  the  exhaustive 
study  made  by  Karl  Groos  in  his  two  volumes,  "The 
Play  of  Animals,"  and  "The  Play  of  Man."  Here  we 
find  the  writer  taking  "the  conception  of  impulse  life 
as  a  starting-point,"  and  reaching  the  conclusion  "that 
among  higher  animals  certain  instincts  are  present 
which,  especially  in  youth,  but  also  in  maturity,  pro- 
duce activity  that  is  without  serious  intent,  and  so 
give  rise  to  the  various  phenomena  which  we  include 
in  the  word  "play."  In  this  play,  Groos  goes  on, 
"opportunity  is  given  to  the  animal  through  the 
exercise  of  inborn  dispositions,  to  strengthen  and 
increase  his  inheritance  in  the  acquisition  of  adap- 
tations to  his  complicated  environment,  an  achievement 
which  would  be  unattainable  by  mere  mechanical 
instinct  alone."  In  the  treatment  of  human  play  he 
considers  "an  analogous  position  is  tenable,"  but,  for 
the  word  instinct,  with  its  particular  reactions,  he 
must  substitute  "natural  or  hereditary  impulse." 

We  have  already  seen  that  though  Froebel  recog- 
nized the  existence  and  importance  of  human  instinct, 
still  he  distinguished  between  it  and  the  "definite  and 
strong  instincts"  which  belong  to  the  animals  lower 
than  man.  We  have  seen  that  he  regarded  the  play 
of  childhood  as  "spontaneous  self -instruction "  based 
on  the  instincts  of  investigation  and  of  construction  or 
representation,  action  being  regarded  as  the  principal 


126   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

means  of  investigating,  as  well  as  of  gaining  control 
over  the  surroundings  and  over  the  self.  We  have 
noticed,  too,  that  Groos  feels  inclined  to  assume  a 
universal  "impulse  to  activity,"  and  points  out  that 
Ribot  approaches  such  an  assumption,  though  for  him- 
self he  can  only  venture  to  "hold  fast  to  the  fact  of  the 
primal  need  for  activity."  Froebel  does,  as  we  have 
seen,  attribute  to  the  infant  the  one  instinct  of 
activity,  which  in  one  place  he  calls  "the  natural 
longing  for  some  mode  of  activity  inherent  in  all 
children,"  and  this  he  says  becomes  differentiated  at 
a  later  period. 

The  special  place  given  by  Groos  to  imitation  as 
"the  link  between  instinctive  and  intelligent  conduct" 
is  also  noteworthy.  For  we  have  seen  that  Froebel 
regards  imitation  in  precisely  the  same  light,  never 
calling  it  an  instinct,  but  saying  that  it  is  the  out- 
come of  spontaneous  activity,  and  that  it  leads  on  to 
understanding. 

"For  what  man  tries  to  represent  or  do  he 
begins  to  understand." — E.,p.  76. 

"As  now,  habit  in  the  child  proceeds  from 
spontaneous  and  independent  activity,  so  also 
does  imitation ;  .  .  .  the  whole  inner  life  of  the 
child  shows  itself  as  a  tri-unity  in  the  three- 
fold phenomenon  of  spontaneous  activity,  habit 
and  imitation." — P.,  p.  28. 

It  is  impossible  to  make  plain  how  Froebel  regarded 
play,  until  it  is  known  how  he  regarded  work,  work, 
too,  not  only  for  a  child  but  for  a  human  being.  What 
he  desired  for  all  was  work  which  produces  joy ;  he 
calls  it  "a  debasing  illusion  that  man  works,  produces, 
creates,  only  in  order  to  preserve  his  body,  only  to 
secure  food,  clothing  and  shelter."   Man,  he  says,  works 


PLAY  AND  ITS  RELATION  TO  WORK        127 

"primarily  and  in  truth  that  his  real  essence  may 
assume  outward  form,"  and  one  of  his  sayings  is  that 
"the  true  spirit  of  life  is  the  genuine  spirit  of  play." 
In  an  ideal  state  of  affairs,  no  human  being  would 
be  condemned  to  entirely  mechanical  work.  Work 
"worthy  of  the  nature  of  man"  is  to  Froebel  work 
which  in  some  way  expresses  the  man ;  mechanical 
work  is  dismissed  as  "degrading  man  into  a  beast 
of  burden  or  a  machine."  It  is  because  man  is  of 
God  that  he  must  work,  must  produce.  "  Nearer  we 
hold  of  God  who  gives,  than  of  his  tribes  who  take, 
I  must  believe,"  is  Froebel' s  thought  in  Browning's 
words  : 

"Each  thought  of  God  is  a  work,  an  act,  a 
result.  .  .  .  God  created  man  in  His  own  image. 
Therefore  man  must  create  and  work  like  God. 
Man's  spirit  must  hover  over  the  unformed  and 
move  it  that  figure  and  form  may  come  forth. 
This  is  the  higher  meaning,  the  deep  significance, 
the  great  purpose  of  work  and  industry,  of  working, 
and,  as  it  is  truly  significantly  called,  of  creating. 
We  become  like  God  by  diligence  and  industry, 
by  work  and  action,  which  are  accompanied  by 
the  clear  perception  or  even  the  least  anticipation 
that  thereby  we  represent  the  inner  by  the  outer ; 
that  we  give  body  to  spirit  and  form  to  thought, 
make  visible  the  invisible,  give  an  outward  transient 
existence  to  the  eternal  that  lives  in  the  spirit. 
.  .  .  Early  work,  guided  in  accordance  with  its 
inner  meaning,  confirms  and  elevates  religion. 
Religion  without  work  is  apt  to  become  empty 
dreaming." — E.,  p.  30. 

"  The  boy  is  to  take  up  his  future  work  which 
now  has  become  his  calling,  not  indolently  in  sullen 
gloom,  but  cheerfully  and  joyously,  trusting  God, 


128   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

himself  and  Nature,  rejoicing  in  the  manifold 
prosperity  of  his  work.  .  .  .  Nor  will  the  father 
say  that  his  son  must  take  up  his  own  business 
...  he  will  see  that  every  business  may  be 
ennobled  and  made  worthy  of  man." — E.,  p.  233. 

It  is  too  cheap  a  jibe  to  throw  at  Froebel  and  his 
educational  theories  that  he  makes  little  distinction 
between  work  and  play.  It  ought  never  to  come  from 
any  one  who  has  made  even  a  slight  study  of 
psychology.  The  sting  is  meant  to  lie  in  the  suggestion 
that  play  is  trifling  and  easy  and  that  it  requires  no 
exertion,  while  work  is  serious  and  demands  concen- 
trated effort,  but  this  view  will  not  bear  any  con- 
sideration. Every  one  knows  that  the  play  even  of  an 
adult,  where  the  differentiation  between  work  and  play 
ought  to  be  more  possible,  is  often  most  exhausting, 
either  to  body  or  to  mind.  As  to  the  play  of  childhood, 
one  of  the  best  known  passages  in  "The  Education  of 
Man"  is  the  one  in  which  Froebel  protests  that: 

"Play  at  this  time  is  not  trivial,  it  is  highly 
serious  and  of  deep  significance." — E.,  p.  55. 

It  is  in  this  passage,  too,  that  he  speaks  of  the 
child  "  wholly  absorbed  in  play,"  who  after  "  playing 
enduringly  even  to  the  point  of  fatigue  "  has  fallen 
asleep  "  while  so  absorbed,"  and  calls  this  "  the  most 
beautiful  expression  of  child-life  at  this  stage." 

It  is  Froebel's  glory  that  as  early  as  1826  he  had 
applied  the  theory  of  development  to  education  and, 
rightly  or  wrongly,  he  believed  that  if  we  could  but 
supply  to  our  school  children  material  suited  to  their 
needs  according  to  their  stage  of  development,  they 
would  respond  with  the  same  eagerness  that  the  younger 
child  shows  in  what  we  call  his  play,  but  what  Froebel 


PLAY  AND  ITS  RELATION  TO  WORK        129 

called  his  "self-culture  and  self -education."     He  states 
this  view  quite  distinctly  : 

"We  have  considered  the  object  and  aim  of 
human  life  in  general.  ...  It  now  remains  to 
show  in  what  sequence  and  connection  the  life 
impulses  of  the  boy  develop  at  this  stage,  how  and 
in  what  order  and  form,  the  school  should  work 
in  order  to  satisfy  human  instincts  in  general,  and 
especially  the  instincts  of  the  boy  at  this  stage  of 
school-life. 

"From  a  consideration  of  the  means  of  instruc- 
tion and  manner  of  teaching  thereby  conditioned, 
which  necessarily  coincide  with  the  striving  of  man 
toward  development,  what  is  necessary  for  the 
knowledge  of  number,  of  space,  of  form,  of  exer- 
cises in  speech,  of  writing  and  of  reading  comes 
out  clearly  and  definitely." — E.,  p.  229. 

The  view  that  "the  material  of  instruction  and  the 
manner  of  teaching"  are  necessarily  conditioned  by 
the  child's  stage  of  development  is  a  view  that  has 
rapidly  gained  ground.  Froebel  did  his  best  to  apply 
it,  and  it  had  a  partial  application  in  the  "culture 
epochs"  theory  of  the  Herbartians.  It  has  received  a 
stronger  impetus  into  what  seems  at  present  a  much 
truer  direction,  from  the  experimental  work  carried  out 
at  Chicago,  under  the  auspices  of  Professor  Dewey. 
Froebel  maintained  that  it  was  a  condition  of  satis- 
factory work  in  every  subject.  For  example,  in  con- 
nection with  the  teaching  of  writing  he  says  : 

"Here,  as  in  all  instruction,  we  should  start 
from  a  definite  need  of  the  boy,  a  need,  which 
must,  to  a  certain  extent,  have  been  previously 
developed,  if  he  is  to  be  taught  with  profit  and 
success.     This   is   the   source   of   a   multitude   of 


130   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

imperfections  in  our  schools,  that  we  teach  without 
having  awakened  any  need  for  it,  nay  even  after 
having  repressed  what  need  was  already  there  ! 
How  can  instruction  and  the  school  prosper  ?  " 
—E.,  p.  223. 

Froebel  speaks  in  the  same  way  of  work  in  colours, 
saying  "children  feel  the  need  of  a  knowledge  of 
colours."  Of  poetry  in  general,  including  religious 
verses  and  prayers,  he  says  "these  must  be  given 
according  to  the  requirements  of  the  development  of 
the  child's  mind,  and  must  give  expression  to  what 
is  already  there." 

Returning  now  to  the  subject  of  play  as  such,  we 
find  that  Groos  retains  as  "general  psychological 
criteria  of  play,"  but  two  "of  the  elements  popularly 
regarded  as  essential — namely,  its  pleasurableness,  and 
the  actual  severance  from  life's  serious  aims."  Of  these 
he  says  :  "  Both  are  included  in  activity  performed  for 
its  own  sake." 

It  is  in  connection  with  very  young  children  that 
Froebel  speaks  of  activity  for  its  own  sake,  and  here 
he  does  not  differentiate  between  work  and  play.  He 
is  true  to  his  theory  that  in  all  things  capable  of  develop- 
ment, "what  is  definite  proceeds  everywhere  from  what 
is  indefinite."     So  he  says  that : 

"Play  is  at  first  just  natural  life." — E.,p.  54. 

He  maintains  that : 

"The  activity  of  the  senses  and  limbs  is  the 
first  germ  or  bud,  and  play,  building  and  shaping 
(Gestalten)  the  first  tender  blossoms  of  the  forma- 
tive instinct,  and  that  this  is  the  point  of  time, 
at  which  man  is  to  be  prepared  for  future  industry, 
diligence,  and  productive  activity,"— JS/.,  p.  34. 


PLAY  AND  ITS  RELATION  TO  WORK        131 

But,  in  the  case  of  the  boy  a  Httle  older,  though 
still  only  seven  or  eight,  Froebel  does  distinctly  differ- 
entiate, giving  the  definition  of  play  already  quoted, 
"spontaneous  expression  and  practice  of  every  kind," 
and  saying  of  work,  that : 

"  Boys  of  this  age  should  have  definite  domestic 
occupations,  indeed  they  could  be  actually  in- 
structed by  mechanics  and  farmers  as  has  already 
been  done  by  many  a  father  with  active  natural 
insight.  Boys  of  a  somewhat  advanced  age  should 
be  often  placed  in  a  position  to  accomplish  some- 
thing with  their  own  hands  and  their  own  judg- 
ment .  .  .  should  devote  daily  at  least  one  or  two 
hours  to  an  occupation  with  outward  results  .  .  . 
after  such  a  refreshing  work  bath,  I  cannot  better 
designate  it,  the  mind  goes  with  new  life  to  its 
intellectual  employments." — E.,p.  236. 

Of  the  infant,  Froebel  writes  : 

"At  this  stage  of  development  the  man-to-be 
(dem  erschienenen  werdenden  Menschen)  iises  his 
body,  his  senses,  his  limbs,  entirely  for  that  itse, 
practice  and  exercise,  not  at  all  for  its  results,  to 
which  he  is  quite  indifferent,  or,  to  speak  more 
correctly,  of  which  he  has  as  yet  no  idea.  Out  of 
this  comes  what  begins  at  this  stage,  the  child's 
play  with  his  limbs  ;  with  his  hands,  fingers,  lips, 
tongue  and  feet,  and  also  with  the  movements  of 
his  eyes  and  of  his  face." — E.,  p.  48. 

Of  the  older  child  Froebel  very  distinctly  insists 
that  he  wants  more  than  the  activity,  that  he  wants 
outward  result.  But  the  result  of  which  he  speaks  is 
one  which  Groos  himself  would  not  disallow.  It  is 
only  the  outward  product  of  the  impulse  which  has 
been  gratified,  a  result  which  is  present  to  the  mind 


132   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

of  the  older  child,  while  to  the  infant  no  such  con- 
sciousness is  possible. 

"What  at  an  earlier  stage  of  childhood  was 
action  for  the  sake  of  the  activity,  is  now,  in  the 
boy,  activity  for  the  sake  of  the  visible  result ; 
the  child's  instinct  of  activity  has  developed  into 
an  instinct  for  shaping  or  giving  form,  and  herein 
lies  the  solution  of  the  whole  outer  life  or  outer 
manifestation  of  boy  life  at  this  stage." — E.,  p.  99. 

Inquiring  into  the  kind  of  pleasure  derived  from 
play,  Groos  finds  that  it  rests  primarily  on  the  satis- 
faction of  inborn  impulses,  which  press  for  discharge, 
and  he  gives  three  special  "inborn  necessities  which 
ground  our  pleasure  in  play — ^namely,  the  exercise  of 
attention,  the  demand  to  be  an  efficient  cause,  and 
imagination." 

As  to  attention,  he  suggests  that  it  lends  a  mean- 
ing to  the  vague  idea  of  a  general  need  for  activity, 
speaking  of  "  the  pitiable  condition  of  boredom  "  if 
opportunity  is  withheld. 

Froebel,  of  course,  has  much  to  say  about  the 
instinct  of  activity,  or,  as  he  usually  calls  it  in  "The 
First  Action  of  a  Child,"  the  instinct  of  employment 
(Beschaftigungstrieb),  which  is  noticeable  "even  when 
the  so-called  three  months'  slumber  has  just  ended." 
He,  too,  frequently  refers  to  "  the  ennui  and  per- 
nicious lack  of  occupation,"  to  the  "  mischievous 
idleness  which  results  from  our  not  satisfying  or 
misdirecting  the  natural  longing  for  activity  inherent 
in  all  children."  It  is  because  Froebel's  thoughts 
always  run  on  conscious  revelation  of  the  self  within 
as  the  explanation  of  human  life,  that  he  makes  so 
much  of  "  the  child's  instinct  to  employ  itself " 
(Triebe  des  Kindes,  sich  zu  beschaftigen).  This 
also  explains  how  so   much  that  he  says  corresponds 


PLAY  AND  ITS  RELATION  TO  WORK        133 

with  what  Groos  brings  forward  with  regard  to  "the 
joy  in  being  a  cause,"  and  its  modifications.  These 
modifications  are  (a)  pleasure  in  the  mere  possession 
of  power,  (b)  emulation,  when  a  model  is  copied,  and 
(c)  in  the  case  of  imitative  competition  there  is 
pleasure  in  surpassing  others  as  well  as  the  enjoyment 
of  success  resulting  from  that  pleasure  of  overcoming 
difficulties  which  comes  under  the  combative  instinct. 

Froebel  is  warning  parents  that  they  must  provide 
for  their  children  opportunity  for  the  exercise  of  the 
impulse  to  formative  activity  by  letting  them  help, 
even  if  their  help  is  really  a  hindrance,  and  he  says  : 

"If  his  earlier  activity  was  only  imitation  of 
what  he  saw  around  him,  now  it  is  sharing  in  the 
business  of  the  house,  lifting,  pulling,  carrying, 
digging,  and  wood-splitting.  In  everything  the 
boy  will  exercise,  measure  and  compare  his 
strength  that  his  body  may  grow  stronger,  that 
his  power  may  increase,  and  that  he  may  know 
its  measure.  ...  At  this  age  the  healthy  boy, 
brought  up  simply  and  naturally,  never  avoids  a 
difficulty,  never  goes  round  a  hindrance  :  no,  he 
seeks  it  out  and  overcomes  it.  '  Let  it  lie,' 
calls  the  vigorous  youngster  to  the  father,  who 
offers  to  remove  an  obstacle ;  *  Let  it  lie  :  I  can 
get  over  it.*  .  .  .As  activity  gave  pleasure  to 
the  child,  so  work  gives  pleasure  to  the  boy. 
Hence  the  daring  feats  of  boyhood.  .  .  .  Easy  is 
the  most  difficult,  without  peril  the  most  adven- 
turous, for  the  impulse  comes  from  the  inner- 
most nature,  from  his  heart  and  will." — E.,  p.  101. 

"But  it  is  not  only  the  impulse  to  use  and  to 
measure  his  power  that  urges  the  boy  to  roam  and 
to  climb — it  is  the  need  to  widen  his  mental 
horizon.  .  .  .  The  same  desire  holds  him  to  the 


134   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

plain  ...  he  occupies  himself  with  water  and 
with  plastic  materials.  For  he  seeks  now  because 
of  the  feeling  of  power  over  material  already  gained 
to  master  these.  Everything  must  serve  his 
impulse  towards  construction.  .  .  .  And  so  each 
forms  for  himself  his  own  world,  for  the  feeling 
of  his  own  power  demands  his  own  space  and  his 
own  material.  .  .  ." — E.,pp.  102-107. 

"But  all  the  plays  and  occupations  of  boys  do 
not  by  any  means  aim  at  representing  objects  and 
things.  On  the  contrary,  in  many  pure  exercise  of 
strength  and  measuring  of  strength  predominate, 
and  many  have  no  further  aim  than  the  display 
of  strength.  Yet  the  play  of  this  age  has  always 
its  peculiar  characteristic,  namely,  as  during  the 
period  of  childhood,  the  aim  of  play  consisted 
simply  in  activity  as  such,  so  now  its  aim  is  always 
a  definite  conscious  purpose,  which  characteristic 
develops  more  and  more  as  the  boys  increase  in 
age.  This  is  observable  even  with  all  games  of 
bodily  movement,  of  running,  boxing,  wrestling, 
with  ball-games,  goal,  hunting,  and  war  games, 
etc." 

"/<  is  the  sense  of  sure  and  reliable  power ^  the 
sense  of  its  increase  both  as  an  individual  and  as  a 
member  of  the  group  that  fills  the  boy  with  all- 
pervading  jubilant  joy  during  these  games." — E.^ 
p.  113. 

It  is  evidently  difficult  even  for  practised  thinkers 
to  grasp  the  importance  of  what  we  so  glibly  call  play 
in  the  case  of  the  young  child.  Mr.  Kirkpatrick,  for 
instance,  fully  recognizes  its  importance  in  regard  to 
children  somewhat  older,  and  he  makes  a  suggestive 
distinction  between  play  and  amusement,  calling  play 


PLAY  AND  ITS  RELATION  TO  WORK        135 

active,  while  amusement  is  passive.  Others,  he  says, 
work  for  our  amusement.  But  when  he  speaks  of  the 
infant,  he  shps  into  the  mistake  of  saying  that  the 
infant,  even  though  active,  "amuses"  itself.  To  the 
ordinary  observer  the  whole  life  of  a  young  child  is 
play,  but  it  would  be  as  correct  to  say  that  it  is  all 
work. 

Professor  Stout,  true  to  what  he  calls  the  tendency 
of  the  moderns  to  see  in  the  little  child  what  is  writ 
large  in  the  adult,  allows  "purely  intellectual  curiosity" 
on  the  part  of  the  infant.  We  have  no  right  to  call  an 
infant  passive  and  therefore  amused  even  when  the 
mother  shakes  the  rattle  for  his  edification.  He  may 
be  striving  hard  to  accommodate  his  organs  of  sight, 
he  may  be  recalling  previous  sounds  similar  and  dis- 
similar, he  may  be  watching  and  comparing  different 
movements  and  different  positions.  He  has  so  much 
to  learn  "with  the  world  so  new  and  all,"  and,  to  judge 
from  his  seriousness,  it  is  at  times  a  most  momentous 
inquiry.  The  baby  to  whom  the  activity  of  throw- 
ing is  new,  and  who  spends  full  twenty  minutes  in 
throwing  a  tram  ticket  on  the  floor  of  the  car — which 
the  patient  mother  restores  each  time — throwing,  too, 
with  such  force  and  evident  purpose,  cannot  properly 
be  said  to  be  playing.  Nor  can  the  infant  who  stares 
with  such  concentration  at  the  lighted  lamp  and  who, 
when  the  mother  moves  out  of  the  direct  range  of 
the  light,  strives  with  all  its  feeble  strength  to  readjust 
its  position  to  that  entrancing  brightness. 

Of  the  very  young  child,  Froebel  writes  : 

"The  first  voluntary  employments  of  the  child 
are  observation  of  its  surroundings,  spontaneous 
taking  in  of  the  outer  world,  and  play,  which  is 
independent  outward  expression  ...  it  is  evident 
therefore  how  important  is  the  training  .  .  .  and 


136   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

also  the  kind  of  voluntary  playful  occupation  of 
the  child.  .  .  .  For  as  the  life  of  man  is  con- 
tinuous one  can  recognize  even  in  the  first  baby 
life,  though  only  in  the  slightest  traces  and  most 
delicate  germs,  all  the  mental  activities  which  in 
later  life  become  predominant." — P.,  p.  29. 

When  Groos  reaches  the  pedagogical  standpoint,  he 
says  : 

"We  have  repeatedly  found  in  the  course  of  this 
inquiry  that  even  the  most  serious  work  may  include 
a  certain  playfulness,  especially  when  enjoyment  of 
being  a  cause  and  of  conquest  are  prominent.  Between 
flippant  trifling,  and  conscientious  study  there  is  a 
wide  chasm  which  nothing  can  bridge,  but  not  all  play 
is  such  trifling.  Who  would  forbid  the  teacher's 
making  the  effort  to  induce  in  his  pupils  a  psychological 
condition  like  that  of  the  adult  worker,  who  is  not 
oppressed  by  the  shall  and  must  in  the  pursuit  of  his 
calling,  because  the  very  exertion  of  his  physical  and 
mental  powers  in  work,  involving  all  his  capabilities, 
fills  his  soul  with  joy  ?  Since  play  thus  approaches 
work,  when  pleasure  in  the  activity  as  such,  as  well 
as  its  practical  aim,  becomes  a  motive  power  (as  in 
the  gymnastic  games  of  adults),  so  may  work  become 
like  play,  when  its  real  aim  is  superseded  by  enjoy- 
ment of  the  activity  itself.  And  it  can  hardly  be 
doubted  that  this  is  the  highest  and  noblest  form  of 
work."* 

It  is  beyond  dispute  that  this  is  the  kind  of  work 
that  Froebel  desired  for  all  humanity,  so  it  is  not 
surprising  if  he  drew  no  hard  and  fast  line  between 
work  and  the  ''play''  which  he  insists  "^5  not  trivial^" 

*  "The  Play  of  Man,"  p.  400. 


PLAY  AND  ITS  RELATION  TO  WORK        137 

and  which  he  urges  parents  to  protect  and  guide.     Of 
play  at  the  stage  of  boyhood  he  writes  : 

"  Joy  is  the  soul  of  every  activity  at  this 
period." — E.,  p.  304. 

And  in  reference  to  the  right  kind  of  instruction  he 
says  : 

"The  union  of  school  and  life  is  the  first  and 
indispensable  requirement  ...  if  men  are  ever  to 
free  themselves  from  the  oppressive  burden  and 
emptiness  of  merely  extraneously  communicated 
knowledge,  heaped  up  in  memory,  if  they  would 
ever  rise  to  the  joy  and  vigour  of  a  knowledge  of 
the  real  nature  of  things,  to  a  living  knowledge  of 
things.  .  .  .  Mankind  is  meant  to  enjoy  a  degree 
of  knowledge  and  insight,  of  energy  and  efficiency, 
of  which  at  present  we  have  no  conception ;  for 
who  has  measured  the  limits  of  God-born  man- 
kind !  The  boy  is  to  take  up  his  work  which 
has  now  become  his  calling,  not  indolently  in 
sullen  gloom,  but  cheerfully  and  joyously." — E., 
pp.  230-233. 

One  distinct  line  of  division  is  that  drawn  by  Groos 
when  he  says  that  with  young  animals  and  probably 
with  children  "their  first  manifestation  of  what  is 
afterwards  experimentation,  fighting  and  imitative  play, 
etc.,  is  rarely  conscious,  and  therefore  we  cannot  assert 
with  assurance  that  it  is  pleasurable."*  In  this  case 
he  says  the  biological  but  not  the  psychological  germ 
of  play  is  present.  Froebel  never  lost  sight  of  the 
psychological  point  of  view  in  so  far  as  his  desire  always 
was  to  see  what  the  action  meant  to  the  actor,  what 
the  child's  play  meant  to  the  child,  and  also  in  that 
he  desired  all  the  activity  to  be  joyous,  to  be  performed 

♦  "  The  Play  of  Man,"  p.  382. 


138      PROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

for  its  own   sake.     But   it  was   really  the   biological 
view  that  he  endeavoured  to  reach  and  to  set  forth. 

Coming  now  to  the  Theories  of  Play,  it  seems  clear 
that,  if  he  had  ever  heard  of  them,  Froebel  would 
have  endeavoured  to  combine  those  of  Recapitulation 
and  Preparation.  He  states  quite  plainly  that  these 
are  not  incompatible,  recognizing  that  in  any  work 
or  play,  by  which  the  child  retraces  past  stages  of 
human  development,  he  gains  what  is  most  necessary 
for  his  own  future  life,  control  over  his  surroundings 
as  well  as  over  himself,  something  after  the  manner  in 
which  these  have  been  gained  by  the  race. 

"The  observation  of  the  development  of  indi- 
vidual man  and  its  comparison  with  the  general 
development  of  the  human  race  show  plainly  that, 
in  the  development  of  the  inner  life  of  the  indi- 
vidual man,  the  history  of  the  mental  development 
of  the  race  is  repeated,  and  that  the  race  in  its 
totality  may  be  viewed  as  one  human  being,  in 
whom  there  will  be  found  the  necessary  steps  in 
the  development  of  individual  man." — E.,  p.  160. 

"Indeed  each  successive  generation  and  each 
successive  individual  human  being,  inasmuch  as  he 
would  understand  the  past  and  present,  must  pass 
through  all  preceding  phases  of  human  develop- 
ment and  culture,  and  this  should  not  be  done  in 
the  way  of  dead  imitation,  or  mere  copying,  but 
in  the  way  of  spontaneous  self -activity." — E.,p.  18. 

"Man  should,  at  least  mentally,  repeat  the 
achievements  of  mankind,  that  they  may  not  be 
to  him  empty  dead  masses,  that  his  judgment  of 
them  may  not  be  external  and  spiritless ;  he 
should  mentally  go  over  the  ways  of  mankind, 
that  he  may  learn  to  understand  them.     However 


PLAY  AND  ITS  RELATION  TO  WORK        18D 

it  may  be  said  of  this  growing  activity  of  boyhood, 
which  by  spirit  and  law  are  destined  for  a  conscious 
aim,  '  My  son  does  not  require  this.'  Perhaps  you 
are  right,  I  do  not  know,  but  you  do  know  that 
your  sons  need  energy,  judgment,  perseverance, 
prudence,  etc.,  and  that  these  things  are  indis- 
pensable to  them  ;  and  all  these  things  they  are 
sure  to  get  in  the  course  indicated.  .  .  .  " — 
E.,  p.  282. 

It  is  often  said  that  traditional  games  are  mere 
survivals,  degenerate  imitations  of  ancient  customs,  and 
therefore  not  worth  encouraging.  But  children  are  not 
bound  by  tradition,  and  Froebel  is  probably  right  when 
he  says : 

"It  is  my  firm  conviction  that  whenever  you 
find  anything  that  gives  children  lastingly  and  ever 
freshly  a  joy  belonging  to  a  true  pure  life — any- 
thing where  innocence  and  mirth  predominate — 
you  have  found  something  which  has  at  the  bottom 
of  it  a  higher  and  more  important  meaning  for  a 
child's  life."— M.,  p.  172. 

We  cannot  always  tell  why  children  enjoy  the  game, 
or  what  they  gain  from  it.  Such  games  are  at  least 
the  earliest  and  simplest  introduction  to  "the  rules  of 
the  game,"  and  they  contain  the  elements  of  choosing 
sides  and  of  whispered  secrets.  These  things  may  seem 
small  to  the  ordinary  onlooker,  but  not  to  the  real 
observer,  who  sees  the  amount  of  self-control  required 
by  a  child  of  four  or  five,  that  he  may  not  proclaim 
the  secret  aloud,  the  difficulty  he  has  in  whispering, 
and  the  importance  to  him  of  the  choice  between 
oranges  and  lemons  or  whatever  it  may  be.  There 
are    certainly    some    which    most    thinking    persons. 


140      FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

Froebelian   or   otherwise,   would    wish    to    discourage. 
As  Froebel  himself  said  of  some  that  he  found  in  use : 
"I  thought  some  were  too  empty  and  silly  and 
some  said  a  great  deal  that  I  would  not  willingly 
have  said  to  children.     Yet  the  counting  games 
themselves  seemed  to  me  important  in  many  ways, 
as  I  hope  will  appear  from  comparing  the  way  I 
have  dealt  with  them,  and  above  all,  as  the  mottoes 
are  meant  to  point  out.     I  even  wished  to  keep  the 
sound  of  the  well-known  popular  words,  at  least 
in  the  opening  words.    .    .    .  " — M.,  p.  157. 
Certainly,  Froebel  would  have  had  no  dealings  with 
either  work  or  play  which  would  interfere  with  pro- 
gressive development,  he  wanted  recapitulation  because 
he   regarded  that  "great  necessary  highway"   as  the 
road  to  sure  progress. 

"Only  if  in  each  particular  we  tread  again  the 
great  necessary  highway  of  humanity  as  a  whole, 
does  the  great  and  vigorous  early  life  of  humanity 
come  back  to  us  in  and  through  the  children." — 
E.,p.  222. 

"  Education  must  be  much  more  tolerating*  and 
following  than  predetermining  and  prescribing,  for 
by  the  full  application  of  the  latter  method  of  in- 
struction we  should  entirely  lose  the  characteristic, 
the  sure  and  steady   progressive   development  of 
mankind." — E.,  p.  10. 
Some    educators    who    have    made    much    of    the 
"culture   epochs"    might   have   avoided   mistakes   and 
exaggerations   if   they   had   taken   to   heart   Froebel's 
repeated  warning  that  the  child  has  "living  relations" 
not  only  with  the  past,  but  with  the  future,  besides  being 
at  the  same  time  the  child  of  the  present  generation. 
"  Parents  should  view  their  child  in  his  necessary 
connection,  in  his  obvious  and  living  relations  to 

*Seep.  194. 


PLAY  AND  ITS  RELATION  TO  WORK        141 

the  past,  present,  and  future  development  of 
humanity,  in  order  to  bring  the  education  of  the 
child  into  harmony  with  the  past,  present  and 
future  requirements  of  the  development  of 
humanity  and  of  the  race.  .  .  .  Man,  humanity 
in  man,  as  an  external  manifestation,  should  there- 
fore be  looked  upon  not  as  perfectly  developed, 
not  as  fixed  and  stationary,  but  as  steadily  and 
progressively  growing,  in  a  state  of  ever-living 
development,  ever  ascending  from  one  stage  of 
culture  to  another  toward  its  aim,  which  partakes 
of  the  infinite  and  eternal. 

"It  is  unspeakably  pernicious  to  look  upon  the 
development  of  humanity  as  stationary  and  com- 
pleted and  to  see  in  its  present  phases  only 
repetitions  and  greater  generalizations  of  itself. 
For  the  child,  as  well  as  every  successive  genera- 
tion, becomes  thereby  exclusively  imitative,  an 
external  dead  copy — a  cast,  as  it  were,  of  the 
preceding,  and  not  a  living  ideal  of  the  stage 
which  it  has  attained  in  human  development 
considered  as  a  whole,  to  serve  future  generations 
in  all  time  to  come." — E.,  p.  17. 

Underlying  all  that  Froebel  has  to  say  of  play, 
is  the  idea  that  it  is  a  preparation  for  future  life 
activities.  This  is  implieii  even  in  the  definition 
given  of  the  play  of  the  child  of  three  years  old,  viz. 
that  it  is  "  spontaneous  self -instruction "  ;  it  is  most 
evident  in  the  passage  : 

"Play,  building  and  modelling  are  the  first 
tender  blossoms,  and  this  is  the  period  when  man 
is  to  be  prepared  for  future  industry,  diligence 
and  productive  activity." — E.,  p.  34. 

"The  whole  later  life  of  man  has  its  source  in 
the  period  of  childhood,  be  this  later  life  bright  or 


142   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

gloomy,  gentle  or  violent,  industrious  or  lazy,  rich 
or  poor  in  action,  passed  in  dull  stupor  or  in  keen 
creativeness,  in  stupid  wonder  or  in  intelligent 
insight,  productive  or  destructive." — E.,  p.  55. 

Of  his  later  institution,  the  Kindergarten,  Froebel  says : 

"The  great  end  and  aim  of  the  whole  under- 
taking is  the  Education  of  Man  from  its  earliest 
beginning,  by  means  of  action,  feeling,  and  thought, 
in  accordance  with  his  own  inward  being  and  out- 
ward relations,  .  .  .  this  to  be  attained  by  the  right 
care  of  child -life,  the  encouragement  of  childish 
activities" — L.,  p.  164. 

"For  the  object  is  twofold  :  Firstly  the  realiza- 
tion in  as  clear  and  perfect  a  manner  as  possible, 
of  the  fundamental  conception  of  a  mode  of  education 
based  upon  the  early  and  complete  training  of 
human  life,  and  satisfying  the  needs  of  children  by 
a  genuine  encouragement  of  their  spontaneous 
activity  through  the  medium  of  a  normal  insti- 
tution which  we  have  symbolically  named  a 
Kindergarten." — L,,  p.  166. 

About  the  play  of  boyhood  Froebel  says  : 

"Play  to  the  boy  is  a  mirror  of  the  combat  of 
life  awaiting  him  in  the  future  :  therefore,  in  order 
to  strengthen  himself  for  the  combat,  the  human 
being  both  in  early  and  later  boyhood  seeks  out 
obstacles,  difficulty  and  combat  in  his  play.  .  .  . 
Many  of  his  actions  have  an  inner  significance. 
.  .  .  How  wholesome  it  would  be  if  parents  and 
child,  for  their  present  and  future,  if  parents  be- 
lieved in  this,  if  they  would  observe  the  life  of  their 
children  in  this  respect,  what  a  new  living  bond 
would  unite  parents  and  child,  what  a  new  thread 
of  life  would  be  drawn  between  their  present  and 
their  future  life  !  "—E.,p.  118. 


PLAY  AND  ITS  RELATION  TO  WORK        148 

Of  his  own  Keilhau  boys  he  writes  : 

"One  thing  is  certain,  these  plays  are  the 
outcome  of  the  spirit  of  boyhood.  And  the  boys 
who  played  thus  were  good  scholars,  intelligent, 
and  willing  to  learn,  seeing  and  expressing  clearly, 
diligent  and  full  of  zeal.  Some  are  now  capable 
young  men  with  well  trained  heads  and  hearts, 
quick  in  expedients  and  dexterous  in  action  ;  some 
are  capable,  clear-sighted  men,  and  others  will 
become  so." — E.,  p.  111. 

In  America  at  least  the  authorities  are  beginning 
to  realize  the  truth  of  Froebel's  words  as  to  the  im- 
portance of  playgrounds,  and  actual  experiment  has 
shown  that  he  was  right  in  saying  that  "even  the 
plays  should  be  under  right  guidance,"  not  for  pur- 
poses of  repression,  but  for  the  encouragement  of  real 
play  which  "must  necessarily  break  forth  in  joy  from 
within." 

"Justice,  moderation,  self-control,  truthful- 
ness, loyalty,  brotherly  feeling  and  again,  strict 
impartiality — who,  when  he  approaches  a  group 
of  boys  engaged  in  such  games,  could  fail  to 
catch  the  fragrance  of  these  delicious  blossomings 
of  the  heart  and  mind  and  of  a  firm  will ;  not  to 
mention  the  beautiful,  though  perhaps  less  fra- 
grant, blossoms  of  courage,  perseverance,  resolu- 
tion, prudence,  together  with  the  severe  elimination 
of  indolent  indulgence  ?  Flowers  of  still  more 
delicate  fragrance  bloom  .  .  .  forbearance,  con- 
sideration, sympathy  and  encouragement  for  the 
weaker,  younger  and  more  delicate  ;  fairness  to 
those  who  are  as  yet  unfamiliar  with  the  game. 

"  Would  that  all  who,  in  the  education  of  boys, 
barely  tolerate  playgrounds  might  consider  these 
things  !    There  are,  indeed,  many  harsh  words  and 


144   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

many  rude  deeds,  but  the  sense  of  power  must 
needs  precede  its  cultivation.  Keen,  clear  and 
penetrating  are  the  boy's  eyes ;  keen  and  decided 
therefore,  even  harsh  and  severe  is  his  judgment 
of  those  who  are  his  equals,  or  who  claim  equality 
with  him  in  judgment  and  power. 

"Every  place  should  have  its  own  common 
playground  for  the  boys.  Glorious  results  would 
come  from  this  for  the  entire  community.  For 
at  this  period,  games,  whenever  it  is  feasible,  are 
common,  and  thus  develop  the  feeling  and  desire 
for  community  and  the  laws  and  requirements  of 
community. 

"  The  boy  tries  to  see  himself  in  his  companions, 
to  feel  himself  in  them,  to  weigh  and  measure 
himself  by  them,  to  know  and  find  himself  with 
their  help.  Thus  the  games  directly  influence  and 
educate  the  boy  for  life,  awaken  and  cultivate 
many  civil  and  moral  virtues." — E.,  p.  113. 

It  was  in  watching  boys  one  day — "boys,"  he  says, 
"of  the  right  age  for  these  plays,  but  whose  life  is  not 
awakened,  or  has  been  dulled,  and  who  now  idly  lounge 
around,  getting  in  their  own  way,  as  it  were" — that  a 
friend  said  to  him,  "I  do  not  understand  how  these 
boys  cannot  play,  how  many  plays  we  had  at  their 
age  I  "  And  it  is  here  that  Froebel  gives  his  version 
of  the  "surplus  energy"  theory  when  he  writes  : 

"  In  every  case  the  plays  of  this  age  are  or 
should  be  pure  manifestations  of  strength  and 
vitality,  they  are  the  product  of  fullness  of  life,  and 
of  pleasure  in  life.  They  presuppose  actual  vigour 
of  life,  both  inner  and  outer.  Where  these  are 
lacking,  there  cannot  be  true  play,  which,  bearing 
life   in   itself,   awakens,   nourishes   and   heightens 


PLAY  AND  ITS  RELATION  TO  WORK        145 

life.  .  .  .  This  shows  clearly  that  even  the  plays 
at  this  age  should  be  under  guidance*,  and  the 
boy  made  ready  for  them,  i.e.  his  life,  his  ex- 
perience both  in  school  and  out  of  it,  must  be 
made  so  rich  that  it  must  necessarily  break  forth 
in  joy  from  within,  like  the  blossom  from  the 
swelling  bud.  Joy  is  the  soul  of  every  activity  of 
boyhood  at  this  period." — E.,p.  303. 

It  is  here,  too,  in  the  section  entitled,  "Play  or 
Spontaneous  Expression  and  Practice  of  Every  Kind" 
that  Froebel  begins  a  general  classification  of  boy's 
play: 

"The  plays,  or  spontaneous  occupations,  of 
this  age  are  of  three  kinds,  they  are  either  (a) 
imitations  of  life,  or  (6)  spontaneous  applications 
of  what  has  been  learned,  or  they  are  (c)  perfectly 
spontaneous  expression  with  all  kinds  of  material. 
These  last  are  either  governed  by  the  material, 
or  by  the  thought  and  feeling  of  the  human  being. 
.  .  .  They  may  be  and  are  either  Physical  plays, 
exercising  strength  and  dexterity,  or  else  mere 
buoyancy  of  life ;  or  Sense  plays  exercising  the 
hearing,  e.g.  in  hiding  games,  etc.,  or  the  sight, 
as  in  shooting  plays  or  colour  plays,  etc. ;  or  In- 
tellectual plays,  games  of  reflection  and  judgment, 
e.g.  draughts,  etc.  As  such  they  are  already 
arranged,  but  the  true  aim  and  spirit  of  the  play 
is  rarely  understood  and  the  games  are  seldom 
managed  according  to  the  needs  of  the  boy." — 
E.,  p.  304. 

This  general  classification  is  very  much  the  same 
as  that  of  Groos,  who  divides  Play  first  into  two  main 

*  In  another  place  Froebel  does  say  that,  *'  Only  on  condition 
that  the  genuine  spirit  of  play — i.e.  the  true  spirit  of  life — lives  in 
the  teacher,  can  he  call  it  forth  in  the  child." 


146   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

classes,  viz.  Playful  Experimentation  and  Playful 
Exercise  of  the  Second  or  Socionomic  Order.  Under 
the  first  heading  come  I.  Playful  Activity  of  the  Sensory 
Apparatus ;  II.  Playful  Use  of  the  Motor  Apparatus  ; 
and  III.  Playful  Exercise  of  the  Higher  Mental  Powers. 
The  first  two  correspond  to  Froebel's  Sense  Plays  and 
Physical  Plays,  and  the  third  to  his  Intellectual  Plays. 
Under  the  second  heading,  Groos  brings  Fighting 
Plays,  which  as  we  have  seen  Froebel  attributes  to  the 
unconscious  desire  to  measure  and  increase  strength  ; 
Imitative  Play,  which  to  Froebel  is  the  child's  way  of 
learning  by  action  ;  Love  Plays  of  which  Froebel  takes 
no  notice  at  all,  and  Social  Play.  Under  this  comes 
what  has  been  given  as  to  the  importance  of  Play- 
grounds, and  much  of  what  Froebel  wrote  as  to  the 
Kindergarten  Games.  For  instance,  as  part  of  the 
work  of  the  students  in  his  Training  Course  comes  : 

"The  acquisition  of  little  games  arranged  to 
exercise  the  limbs  and  senses  of  the  child.  .  .  . 
The  acquisition  of  other  games  arranged  to  suit 
special  ends  and  suited  to  varied  grades  of  develop- 
ment. .  .  .  Practice  in  combined  games  for  many 
children,  and  particularly  action  games,  which 
will,  from  the  first,  train  the  child  (by  his  very 
nature  eager  for  companionship)  in  the  habit  of 
association  with  comrades,  that  is,  in  good  fellow- 
ship and  all  that  this  implies.  ...  To  games  for 
individual  children  succeed  games  for  the  whole 
Kindergarten  together.  The  child  in  these  asso- 
ciated games  alternately  appears  first  as  taking 
some  individual  or  separate  part,  and  then  as 
merely  one  of  several  closely  knit  and  equally 
important  members  of  a  greater  whole,  so  that  he 
becomes  familiar  with  both  the  strongly  opposed 
elements    of    his    life  ;    namely    the    individual 


PLAY  AND  ITS  RELATION  TO  WORK        147 

determining  and  directing  side,  and  the  general 
ordered  and  subordinated  side." — L.,  p.  253. 

Games  of  this  kind  have  been  much  misused, 
especially  by  being  given  a  rigidity  of  form  which, 
Froebel  wrote  : 

"Would  quite  destroy  that  fresh  merry  life  which 
should  animate  the  games  .  .  .  the  games  would 
cease  to  be  games  and  lose  their  full  educational 
power.  The  main  thought  must  be  held  fast ; 
but  the  precise  form  and  style  in  which  the  games 
are  played  must  be  the  outcome  of  the  moment. 
The  freer  and  more  spontaneous  the  arrangement, 
the  more  excellent  is  the  effect  of  the  game." — 
L.,  p.  85. 

The  number  and  variety  of  plays  and  games  noted 
by  Froebel  is  quite  surprising.  Of  the  long  list  given 
by  Groos  there  are  few  indeed  which  he  does  not 
mention.*  The  plays  for  older  children  are  given  in 
*•  The  Education  of  Man,"  but  other  games  en- 
couraged at  Keilhau  are  to  be  found  in  the  accounts 
given  by  Ebers.  Even  in  his  earlier  work  Froebel 
shows  how  closely  he  had  been  observing  the  play  of 
little  children,  but  this  he  worked  out  later  in  his 
Mother  Songs,  in  the  papers  on  his  various  "Gifts," 
and  in  that  on  Movement  Play.  These  later  books 
were  written  and  the  play  material  was  planned  because 
Froebel  saw  that  the  children  who  do  not  play  are 
those  "in  whom  life  has  not  awakened  or  has  been 
dulled,"  just  because  "the  true  aim  and  the  spirit  of 
play  is  rarely  understood  and  the  games  are  seldom 
managed  according  to  the  needs  of  the  boy." 

*  See  Appendix  II. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

Froebel's  Play-Material  and  its  Original 
Purpose 

'TpO  one  who  believed,  as  Froebel  did,  that  "the 
means  by  which  the  child  gains  his  first  ideas 
of  his  own  nature  and  life  and  the  nature  and  life 
of  the  cosmos,  are  his  play  and  playthings,"  these 
playthings  could  not  be  indifferent. 

"It  has  been  stated  as  a  fundamental  truth 
that  the  plays  and  occupations  of  children  should 
by  no  means  be  treated  as  offering  merely  means 
for  passing,  we  might  say  for  consuming,  time, 
hence  as  mere  outer  activity,  but  rather  that  by 
means  of  such  plays  and  employments  the  child's 
innermost  nature  must  be  satisfied." — P.,  p.  108. 

Froebel  was  speaking  of  his  own  Play-material — 
known  by  the  name  of  "  Froebel's  Gifts  "  because  he 
thought  them  the  most  suitable  gifts  for  little  children — 
when  he  wrote  : 

"  To  realize  his  aims,  man,  and  more  par- 
ticularly the  child,  requires  material,  though  it  be 
only  a  bit  of  wood  or  a  pebble  with  which  he  makes 
something  or  which  he  makes  into  something." — 
P.,  p.  235. 

And  although  his  opinion  of  the  importance  of  that 
particular  series  of  playthings,  which  he  chose  from 
among  those  he  saw  in  general  use,  may  have  been 
exaggerated,  still  there  is  a  good  deal  of  sound  psy- 


PLAY-MATERIAL  AND  ITS  PURPOSE        149 

chology  in  what  he  says  about  them.  In  speaking  of 
imitative  action  and  construction,  we  have  already 
touched  upon  what  were  perhaps  the  most  important 
ideas  underlying  this  series.* 

"  What  presents  are  most  prized  by  the  child  ? 
Those  which  afford  him  a  means  of  unfolding  his 
inner  life  most  freely  and  of  shaping  it  in  various 
directions." — P.,  p.  142. 

But  Froebel  also  writes  of  his  Gifts  that  "  they 
will  cover  the  whole  ground  of  training  in  sense 
perception,"  and  he  has  managed  to  think  out  a  very 
fair  number  of  the  points  which  Dr.  Ward,  in  his 
Analysis  of  Perception,  notes  as  important. 

One  of  Froebel' s  frequent  Reviews  of  his  play- 
material  begins  : 

"How  has  the  child  developed  up  to  this 
point  ?  How  has  the  world,  the  objects  and 
things  around  him  developed  ?  How  has  the 
child  developed  himself  especially  through  the  toys 
— the  means  of  play  and  employment  —  which 
have  thus  far  been  given  him  ?  The  brightening 
light  in  the  child's  mind  illuminates  the  objects 
around  him.  In  proportion  as  the  inner  light 
increases,  the  nature  of  external  objects  grows 
clear  to  him  .  .  .  the  law  of  development  is  that 
of  progress  from  the  unlimited  to  the  limited, 
from  the  whole  to  the  part,  from  an  undifferen- 
tiated to  a  membered  totality  .  .  .  the  outer 
world  comes  to  meet  the  inner  world,  it  does 
not  hinder,  but  helps  the  inner  world. 

"The  man  advanced  in  insight  should  be  clear 
about  all  this  before  he  introduces  his  child  to  the 
outer   world.     Even   when    he   gives   his   child   a 

*  See  ;>p.  93,  94. 


150   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

plaything  he  must  make  clear  to  himself  its  pur- 
pose, and  the  purpose  of  playthings  and  occupation 
material  in  general.  This  purpose  is  to  aid  the 
child  freely  to  express  what  lies  within  him — ^to 
bring  the  phenomena  of  the  outer  world  nearer 
to  him,  and  thus  to  serve  as  mediator  between 
the  mind  and  the  world." — P.,  pp.  169-171. 

Then  Froebel  explains  in  so  many  words  the  really 
psychological  aim  or  meaning  of  his  sequence  of 
"Gifts,"  so  well  known  by  name — and  even  better 
known  in  most  wn-psychological  practice — but  little 
understood  in  their  real  and  original  significance,  as 
a  means  of  perception,  the  earlier  ones  at  least,  for 
children  much  below  even  Kindergarten  age. 

"  Recognizing  the  mediatorial  character  of  play 
and  playthings,  we  shall  no  longer  be  indifferent 
either  to  the  choice,  the  succession,  or  the  organic 
connection  of  the  toys  we  give  children.  In  these 
I  offer  them,  I  shall  consider  as  carefully  as  pos- 
sible, how  the  child  may  in  using  them  develop 
his  nature  freely  and  yet  in  accordance  with  law 
(laws  of  mind),  and  how  through  such  use  he  may 
also  learn  to  apprehend  external  things  correctly 
and  to  employ  them  justly.  As  the  child's  first 
consciousness  of  self  was  born  of  physical  op- 
position to  and  connection  with  the  external 
world,  so  through  play  with  the  ball,  the  external 
world  itself  began  to  rise  out  of  chaos  and  to 
assume  definiteness.  In  recognizing  the  ball  the 
child  moved  from  the  indefinite  to  the  definite, 
from  the  universal  to  the  particular,  from  mere 
externality  (compare  Prof.  Ward's  '  mere  thing 
stuff')  to  a  self-included  space-filling  object.  In 
the  ball,  especialh'^  through  movement,  through  the 
opposition  of  rest  and  motion,  through  departing 


PLAY-MATERIAL  AND  ITS  PURPOSE        151 

and  returning,  the  object  came  forth  out  of 
general  space  as  a  special  space-filling  object,  as  a 
body :  just  as  the  child  by  means  of  his  life 
(activity)  also  perceives  himself,  his  bodily  frame, 
as  a  space-filling  object,  as  a  body.  The  child  has 
thus  obtained  two  important  terms  of  comparison 
for  his  first  intellectual  development ;  body  and 
body,  object  and  object.  ...  At  the  same  time 
there  begins  in  the  child,  as  in  a  seed-corn, 
a  development  advancing  towards  manifoldness. 
For  this  reason  he  should  receive  a  corresponding 
seed-corn  in  the  object  which  he  first  detaches  as 
object  from  the  external  chaos.  Such  object 
should,  like  himself,  include  an  indefinite  mani- 
foldness, and  be  susceptible  of  a  progressive 
development.  Such  an  object  is  the  ball  (Gift  I)." 
—P.,  p.  171. 

The  very  first  "intimation  of  an  intellect,"  Froebel 
writes,  is  when  the  child  is  seen  to  "keep  his  gaze  fixed 
upon  the  motion  of  a  bright  object.  This  begins  a 
few  weeks  after  birth."  The  ball  is  to  be  given  to  the 
baby  "when  the  starting-point  of  recognition  and 
knowledge  (Erkennens  und  Erkenntniss),  viz.  per- 
ceiving, noticing,  thinking  (das  Gewahrwerden,  das 
Bemerken  und  Beachten)  becomes  perceptible"  :  when 
the  child  "can  freely  move  its  little  arms  and  hands, 
when  it  can  perceive  and  distinguish  tones,  and  can 
turn  its  attention  and  gaze  in  the  direction  from  which 
these  tones  come." 

In  his  analysis  of  Perception,  Dr.  Ward  distinguishes 
(i)  Assimilation  or  Recognition,  (ii)  Localization  or 
Spatial  Fixation,  and  (iii)  Objective  Reference,  or 
Intuition  of  Things.  Of  these,  the  first,  Assimilation, 
has  already  been  taken  up  in  Chapter  IV,  and  we  have 
seen  that,  according  to  Dr.  Ward,  it  involves  Retention 
and  Differentiation,  though  in  itself  there  is  no  active 


152   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

comparison,  and  we  have  seen  that  Froebel  also  spoke 
of  the  earliest  impressions  as  "  almost  imperceptible, 
but  fixed  by  repetition  and  by  change,"*  and  of  a 
"perception  of  sequence"  involving  "dim"  or  "uncon- 
scious comparison." 

Of  the  second  process  Dr.  Ward  writes  :  "To  treat 
of  the  localization  of  impressions  is  really  to  give  an 
account  of  the  steps  by  which  the  psychological  indi- 
vidual comes  to  a  knowledge  of  space,"  and  he  goes  on 
to  say  that  psychologists  may  have  been  too  apt  to 
examine  "the  conception  of  space  and  not  our  concrete 
space  perceptions."  Now  Froebel  did  consider  con- 
crete space  perception,  and  with  a  certain  amount  of 
care.  That  he  saw  its  importance  is  clear  from  the 
fact  that  in  discussing  his  "means  of  employment" 
he  says  : 

"They  will  cover  the  whole  ground  of  training 
in  sense  perception  but  will  begin  with  the  obser- 
vation of  space  and  the  knowledge  that  comes  from 
■  thatf  since  the  child  first  feels  and  finds  himself  in 
space  and  finds  others  occupying  space  around  him. 
They  are  to  go  on  by  development  of  limbs  and 
senses  and  by  means  of  language  to  understand 
Nature  in  all  directions,  "so  that  finally  man  who 
at  first  could  find  himself  only  in  space  and  by  means 
of  space,  may  learn  to  know  himself  as  an  existent, 
feeling,  thinking,  intelligent,  rational  being,  and 
as  such  to  try  to  live." — P.,  p.  19. 

And  although  Froebel  may  not  fully  have  realized 
that,  as  Dr.  Ward  puts  it:  "The  infant's  earliest  lessons 
in  spatial  perception  are  in  exploring  his  limbs,"  still 
we  do  find  him  writing  from  Blankenburg,  in  a  letter 
accompanying  the  first  sketch  of  his  Nursery  Songs : 

"I  soon  felt  that  some  important  connecting 

*  See  p.  43. 


PLAY-MATERIAL  AND  ITS  PURPOSE        153 

link  was  imperatively  required  to  prepare  the 
newly  awakening  life  of  a  child  for  its  later 
activity  with  the  ball.  It  was  through  the  ball 
itself  that  I  discovered  this  link :  in  general 
terms  it  may  be  described  as  the  first  development 
of  muscular  movement  and  sensation  specially  dis- 
tinguishing infancy.  The  link  between  the  infant, 
still  an  undivided  self-sufficient  whole  of  peaceful 
life,  and  the  ball,  which  is  something  external 
given  to  him  to  play  with,  lies  in  the  child's  own 
limbs,  the  child's  own  senses  ;  and  the  first  toys 
and  occupations  of  the  child  come  from  himself ; 
he  plays  with  his  own  limbs,  and  uses  them  as 
the  material  for  representing  his  ideas.  This 
spontaneous  activity  of  limb  and  vividness  of 
sensation  natural  to  infancy  must  also  be  studied; 
for  a/  considerable  degree  of  cultivation  of  these 
powers  is  already  necessary  in  the  use  of  the 
ball,  etc.  ...  To  help  the  child  to  use  his  own 
body,  his  limbs  and  sensations,  and  to  assist 
mothers  to  a  consciousness  of  their  duties.  .  .  . 
I  have  carefully  preserved  several  little  songs  and 
games  and  send  this  collection  to  you  for  your 
severe  criticism."* — L.,p.  108. 

Having  said  that  "the  child  first  perceives  himself, 
his  corporeal  frame,  as  a  space-filling  object,  as  a  body, 
by  means  of  his  life,"  or  his  activity,  the  first  two  of 
this  collection  naturally  deal  with  large  body  move- 
ments. In  the  one  the  mother  alternately  lowers  and 
raises  the  infant,  "letting  him  really  feel  a  slight  shock," 
and  in  the  other  the  baby  tramples  with  his  feet,  and 
she  is  told  to  supply  the  object  of  resistance.     This 

♦  Froebel  goes  on  to  say :  "  I  believe,  that  after  progressing 
through  the  vast  orbit  of  almost  two  generations  (he  was  nearly  fifty- 
nine)  I  have  been  carried  round  to  the  point  of  commencement,  to 
the  fountain  head  of  the  education  of  mankind,  but  with  the  signifi- 
cant addition  of  a  full  consciousness  of  my  task." 


154   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

resistance,  as  we  have  seen,  gives  him  "the  dim  con- 
sciousness of  self,  which  comes  out  of  physical  oppo- 
sition to,  and  connection  with,  the  outer  world,"  which 
Dr.  Ward  speaks  of  under  the  head  of  Localization  of 
Impressions.  Dr.  Ward  writes  that  "the  distinction 
between  his  own  and  foreign  bodies  begins  when  the 
child  feels  the  difference  between  a  series  of  movements 
accompanied  by  passive  touches,  and  one  without 
passive  touches,"  but  Froebel  goes  no  further  than 
noting  what  comes  through  "resistance."  The  ball, 
however,  as  we  have  just  seen,  is  to  be  used  so  as  to 
assist  the  child's  comprehension  of  "a  self -included 
space-filling  object,"  and  through  play  with  the  ball 
he  is  to  gain  the  "three  great  perceptions  of  object, 
space  and  time." 

In  the  Intuition  of  things.  Dr.  Ward  distinguishes 
five  points  "concerning  which  psychology  may  be 
expected  to  give  an  account :  (a)  the  reality ;  (b) 
solidity  or  occupation  of  space  ;  (c)  permanence,  or, 
rather,  continuity  in  time  ;  (d)  unity  and  complexity  ; 
and  {e)  substantiality  and  the  connection  of  its  attri- 
butes and  powers." 

(a)  Reality  he  disposes  of  as  "not  strictly  an  item 
by  itself,  but  a  characteristic  of  all  the  items  that 
follow.  Of  (6),  Solidity  or  Impenetrability,  he  writes 
that  "here  our  feelings  of  effort  come  specially  into 
play.  They  are  not  entirely  absent  in  those  move- 
ments of  exploration  by  which  we  attain  a  knowledge 
of  space  ;  but  it  is  when  these  movements  are  definitely 
realized,  or  are  only  possible  by  increased  effort,  that 
we  reach  the  full  meaning  of  body  as  that  which 
occupies  space."  Dr.  Ward  goes  on  to  add  as  "in  the 
highest  degree  essential,"  that  muscular  effort  should 
meet  with  something  which  seems  to  be  "making  an 
effort  the  counterpart  of  our  own." 

Besides   telling   the   mother   to   give   the   required 


PLAY-MATERIAL  AND  ITS  PURPOSE        155 

definite  resistance,  by  opposing  her  hand  or  chest  to 
the  Httle  trampling  feet,  Froebel  gives  a  "new  play,  a 
new  perception  of  the  object,"  when  he  tells  the  mother 
that  "as  soon  as  the  child  is  sufficiently  developed  to 
perceive  the  ball  as  a  thing  separate  from  himself," 
she  should  tie  a  string  to  it  and  pull  gently. 

"The  child  will  hold  the  ball  fast,  the  arm  will 
rise  as  you  lift  the  ball,  and  as  you  loosen  the 
string  the  hand  and  arm  will  sink  back  from  their 
own  weight ;  the  feeling  of  the  utterance  of  force, 
as  well  as  the  alternation  of  the  movement,  will 
delight  the  child.  From  this,  however,  soon 
springs  a  quite  new  play,  that  is  also  something 
new  to  the  child,  when,  through  a  suitable  drawing 
and  lifting,  the  ball  escapes  from  the  child's  hand 
and  then  quietly^  moves  freely  before  him  as  an 
individual  object.  Through  this  play  is  developed 
in  the  child  a  new  feeling,  the  new  perception  of 
the  object  as  a  something  now  clasped,  grasped 
and  handled,  and  now  as  a  freely  active  opposite 
something." — P.,  p.  36. 

Unity  and  Complexity,  "the  remaining  factors  in 
the  psychological  constitution  of  things,"  says  Dr. 
Ward,  "might  be  described  in  general  terms  as  the 
time-relations  of  their  opponents.  ..." 

And  Froebel,  going  straight  on  from  "the  opposite 
something,"  comes  in  like  manner  to  time-relations. 

"One  may  say  with  deep  conviction  that  even 
this  simple  activity  is  inexpressibly  important  for 
the  child,  for  which  reason  it  is  to  be  repeated  as 
a  play  with  the  child  as  often  as  possible.  What 
the  little  one  has  up  to  this  time  directly  felt  so 
often  by  the  touch  of  the  mother's  breast — union 
and  separation — it  now  perceives  outwardly  in  an 


156   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

object  which  can  be  grasped  and  clasped.  Thus 
the  repetition  of  this  play  confirms,  strengthens, 
and  clears  in  the  mind  of  the  child  a  feeling  and 
perception  deeply  grounded  in,  and  important  to 
the  whole  life  of  man — the  feeling  and  perception 
of  oneness  and  individuality,  and  of  disjunction 
and  separateness  ;  also  of  present  and  past  pos- 
session. .  .  .  The  idea  of  return  or  recurrence  soon 
develops  to  the  child's  perception,  from  the 
presence  and  absence  ;  that  of  reunion  from  the 
singleness  and  separateness ;  of  future  reposses- 
sion from  present  and  past  possession,  and  so  the 
idea  of  being,  having  and  becoming,  are  the  dim 
perceptions  which  first  dawn  on  the  child. 

"From  these  perceptions  there  at  once  develop 
in  the  child's  mind  the  three  great  perceptions  of 
object,  space  and  time,  which  were  at  first  one 
collective  perception.  From  the  perceptions  of 
being,  having  and  becoming  in  respect  to  space 
and  object,  and  in  connection  with  them,  there 
soon  develop  also  the  new  perceptions  of  present, 
past  and  future  in  respect  to  time.  Indeed,  these 
ninefold  perceptions  which  open  to  the  child  the 
portals  of  a  new  objective  life,  unfold  themselves 
most  clearly  by  means  of  his  constant  play  with 
the  one  single  ball." — P.,  p.  36. 

Dr.  Ward  gives  as  the  first  step  "in  the  psycho- 
logical constitution  of  distinct  things" — as  opposed  to 
what  he  calls  "mere  thingstuff" — "the  simultaneous 
projection  into  the  same  occupied  space  of  the  several 
impressions,  which  we  thus  come  to  regard  as  the 
qualities  of  the  body  filling  it." 

Froebel  writes  : 

"  We  gave,  therefore,  to  the  mother  the  brightly 
coloured  soft  ball  to  make  a  unity  of  touch  and 


PLAY-MATERIAL  AND  ITS  PURPOSE        157 

perception  through  sight,  for  through  the  bright- 
ness it  makes  itself  known  to  sight,  and  through 
warmth  (softness  ?)  to  touch,  as  an  objective 
phenomena,  a  thing  in  itself." — P.,  p.  65. 

To  reach  unity  and  complexity,  says  Ward,  "it  is 
essential  that  objects  should  recur,  and  recur  as  they 
have  previously  recurred,  if  knowledge  is  ever  to 
begin."  The  constituent  impressions  must  also  "be 
again  and  again  repeated  in  like  order  to  prompt  anew 
the  same  grouping,"  and  the  constancy  of  one  group 
must  present  itself  "along  with  changes  in  other 
groups,  and  in  the  general  field.  ...  It  is  only  where 
a  group,  as  a  whole,  has  been  found  to  change  its 
position  relatively  to  other  groups,  and — apart  from 
causal  changes — to  be  independent  of  changes  of 
position  among  them,  that  such  complexes  can  be- 
come distinct  unities  and  yield  a  world  of  things." 

Froebel  writes  of  one  of  his  early  plays : 

"It  is  really  important  for  the  human  being, 
especially  as  a  child,  that  the  essential  perceptions 
of  things  should  be  repeated  frequently  under 
different  forms,  and  if  possible  in  a  particular 
order,  so  that  the  child  may  easily  learn  to  dis- 
tinguish the  essential  from  the  unessential  and 
accidental,  and  the  abiding  from  the  changing. 
Unnoticed  and  unrecognized  though  the  phe- 
nomena are  to  the  child,  yet  the  impression  of 
them  will  be  certain  and  firm,  and  this  so  much 
the  more  when  the  repetition  has  been  precise  and 
clear."— P.,  p.  88. 

Later,  speaking  of  a  child's  earliest  attempts  at 
walking,  he  says  : 

"The  smallest  child  who  begins  to  exercise  the 
power  of  walking,  loves  to  go  from  place  to  place 


158   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

— i.e.  he  likes  to  turn  about  and  to  change  the  relation- 
ships in  which  he  stands  to  different  objects,  and  in 
which  they  stand  to  him.  Through  these  changes  he 
seeks  self-recognition  and  self-comprehension,  as  well 
as  recognition  of  the  different  objects  which  surround 
him,  and  recognition  of  his  environment  as  a  whole." 
—P.,  p.  243. 

Dr.  Ward  requires  still  more  and  says  that  "the 
unity  of  a  thing"  carries  us  over  to  temporal  con- 
tinuity, and  this  he  attributes  to  "the  continuous 
presentation  of  such  a  group  as  the  bodily  self,  which 
makes  us  infer  continuity  of  existence,  for  presentations 
which  have  been  presented,  removed  and  re-presented. 

We  have  seen  already  that  Froebel  says  the  child 
perceives  the  ball  "through  departing  and  returning, 
as  a  space-filling  object,  as  a  body,  just  as  he  perceives 
himself,  his  corporeal  frame,  as  a  space-filling  object, 
as  a  body.  And  there  is  also  a  quaint,  but  interest- 
ing reference  to  something  of  this  kind  in  one  of  the 
earliest  Nursery  Songs  called  "  All  Gone,"  where  the 
mother  is  distinctly  told  that  she  must  help  her  child 
to  realize  continuity  through  change. 

"How  can  the  child  understand  what  you  mean 
when  you  say  '  It's  all  gone.  Baby  '  ?  He  will  not 
be  contented  unless  you  put  meaning  into  it. 
What  he  saw  just  now  he  sees  no  longer,  what 
was  above  is  below,  what  was  there  is  just  now 
vanished.     Where,  then,  has  it  gone  ?  " 

And  the  baby  is  supposed  to  be  quieted  by  the 
mother's  playful  tale  of  the  present  whereabouts  of  his 
bread  and  milk,  a  German  version  of  the  homely 
"Down  red  lane." 

Professor  Ward's  last  point  in  the  intuition  of 
things   is    "substantiality."     "What   is   it,"    he   says, 


PLAY-MATERIAL  AND  ITS  PURPOSE        159 

"that  has  thus  a  beginning  and  continues  indefi- 
nitely ?  "  The  answer  is  that  "of  all  the  constituents 
of  things  only  one  is  universally  present,  that  of 
physical  solidity,  which  presents  itself  according  to 
circumstances,  as  impenetrability,  resistance  or  weight. 
...  In  other  words,  that  which  occupies  space  is  the 
substantial ;  the  other  real  constituents  are  but  its 
properties  or  attributes,  the  marks  or  manifestations 
which  lead  us  to  expect  its  presence." 

Froebel,  again,  sums  up  the  ideas  he  intends  the 
child  to  gain  from  play  with  the  ball : 

"The  ball  shows  contents,  mass,  matter,  space, 
form,  size  and  figure  ;  it  bears  within  itself  an 
independent  power  (elasticity)  and  hence  it  has 
rest  and  movement,  and  consequently  stability 
and  spontaneity ;  it  offers  even  colour,  and  at 
least  calls  forth  sound  ;  it  is  indeed  heavy — that 
is,  it  is  attracted — and  thus  shares  in  the  general 
property  of  all  bodies.  .  .  .  Therefore,  it  places 
man,  on  his  entrance  into  the  world,  furnished  with 
activity  of  limbs  and  senses,  in  the  midst  of  all 
phenomena  and  perceptions  of  Nature  and  of  all 
life  ...  to  place  man  through  a  skilful  education 
in  the  understanding  of  Nature  and  life,  and  to 
maintain  him  in  it  with  consciousness  and  circum- 
spection cannot  be  done  too  early." — P.,  j).  53. 

The  soft  ball  of  the  first  gift  is  supposed  to  be 
given  to  the  child  when  he  is  three  or  even  two  months 
old,  but  when  he  reaches  six  or  eight  months,  he  is 
supposed  to  be  ready  for  something  which  "makes 
itself  known  especially  through  noise,  sound,  tone,  as 
it  were  through  speech."  The  second  gift  therefore 
consists  of  a  wooden  sphere  and  a  cube,  which  are 
intended  not  only  to  please  the  child  by  the  noise  they 
make,  but  to  serve  as  material  for  comparison.     The 


160   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

mother  is  told  to  roll  the  sphere  and  then,  "  in  order  to 
make  this  oppositeness  between  sphere  and  cube  per- 
ceptible to  the  child,  to  place  the  cube  steadily  before 
him  and  presently  to  take  one  of  his  little  hands, 
pushing  gently  at  first,  but 

"finally  overcoming  the  gravity  of  the  cube  and 
pushing  it  away  with  the  child's  hand  and  fingers 
.  .  .  drawing  the  child's  strength,  although  yet  so 
feeble,  into  the  play,  that  his  limbs  may  be 
trained,  his  strength  increased,  and  that  he  may 
experience  and  perceive  much  through  his  own 
activity." — P.,  p.  77. 

By  even  these  few  representations  the  mother  can 
present  to  her  child  : 

"The  quiet,  firm  sure-standing  on  a  relatively 
larger  surface  ;  the  filling  of  space  by  each  object ; 
heaviness  which  is  expressed  by  pressure ;  the 
final  overcoming  of  heaviness  (gravity) ;  and  the 
possibility  of  moving  away  the  body  by  the  use  of 
a  proportionately  greater  strength.  The  percep- 
tion of  all  these  and  many  other  facts,  showing 
themselves  merely  as  changing  phenomena  in  oft- 
recurring  repetition,  will  give  pleasure  even  to  the 
child  who  is  scarcely  half  a  year,  or  at  least  not  a 
whole  year  old,  especially  when  the  play  is  placed 
in  intimate  connection  with  the  child's  life,  and 
with  his  impulse  to  activity." — P.,  p.  78. 

Many  plays  are  suggested,  all  to  be  accompanied 
by  song  or  rhyme,  only,  says  Froebel,  "one  must  not 
go  on  in  opposition  to  the  wish  of  the  child,  but  always 
follow  his  requirements  and  needs  and  his  own  expres- 
sions of  life  and  activity." 

It  is  in  this  connection  that  Froebel  notices  how 
early  a  child  begins  to  note  cause. 


PLAY-MATERIAL  AND  ITS  PURPOSE        161 

"Even  the  child  whose  capacity  for  speech  is 
as  yet  undeveloped  will  remark  the  cause  of  the 
fall  of  the  cube,  at  least  experience  has  shown  us 
that  children  of  this  age  drew  away  the  holding 
support,  and,  as  the  cube  then  fell  over,  turned 
toward  their  mother  with  face  and  body  as  in 
joyous  triumph." — P.,  p.  80. 

The  sphere  and  cube  are  also  to  be  compared  as  to 
shape  : 

"Through  all  that  has  been  done  hitherto,  the 
child's  attention  has  been  predominantly  called  to 
the  object,  as  filling  space,  and  acting,  but  only 
incidentally  to  the  object  as  being  the  identical 
one ;  nor  yet  to  the  figure  and  shape,  nor  to  the 
members  and  parts.  But  attention  to  the  form 
and  figure  of  the  object  can  also  be  utilized  for 
the  child  in  play." — P.,  p.  83. 

So  the  mother  is  directed  to  hide  the  cube  in  her 
hand  and  show  it  again — so  that  the  child  will  watch 
for  its  reappearance. 

"By  this  play  the  child  is  not  only  again 
made  to  notice  that  the  cube  fills  space,  but  his 
attention  is  also  called  to  its  precise  form  ;  and 
he  will  look  at  it  sharply,  unconsciously  compar- 
ing it  with  the  hand  to  which  his  eyes  were  first 
attracted." — P.,  p.  84. 

"Each  object  speaks  constantly  to  man  by  its 
qualities  and  attributes,  and  still  more  to  the 
child,  though  in  mute  speech.  ...  It  is  essential 
for  the  intellectual  development  of  man  that  the 
surroundings  should  speak  to  him  by  their  quali- 
ties and  attributes." — P.,  p.  95. 

Froebel's  "Gift  III"  is  a  little  box  containing 
eight-inch  cubes  for  building  purposes,   and  after  the 


162      FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

child  has  clearly  gained  the  idea  of  "outer  object" 
Froebel  says  : 

"Let  us  first  of  all  hasten  to  place  ourselves 
together  in  the  children's  play  corner,  and  there 
seek  to  discover  what  attracts  the  child,  or,  rather, 
in  what  direction  he  himself  turns  his  attention, 
what  he  would  like  to  do  and  what  he  needs  for 
the  purpose.  Let  us  take  our  place  there  as 
quietly  and  as  unnoticed  as  possible,  observing 
how  the  child,  between  the  ages  of  one  and  three 
years,  after  he  has  clearly  gained  the  idea  of 
"outer  object,"  has  contemplated  the  form  and 
colour  of  the  self-contained  body  which  he  can 
handle,  has  moved  it  here  and  there  in  his  hands, 
and  experimented  upon  its  solidity,  now  tries  to 
pull  it  apart,  or  at  least  to  alter  its  form  in  order 
to  discover  new  properties  in  it,  and  to  find  out 
new  ways  of  using  it.  If  the  little  one  succeeds 
in  his  attempt  to  separate  the  object,  we  see  that 
he  then  tries  to  put  the  parts  together,  to  form 
the  whole  which  he  had  at  first,  or  to  arrange 
them  in  a  new  whole.  We  see  that  he  will 
unweariedly  and  quietly  repeat  this  for  a  long 
time. 

"Let  us  linger  over  this  significant  phenomenon 
and  seek  to  recognize  through  it  what  we  have  to 
furnish  to  the  child  from  inner  grounds  and  with- 
out arbitrariness.  This  is  :  something  firm  which 
can  be  easily  pulled  apart  by  the  child's  strength, 
and  just  as  easily  put  together." — P.^  p.  117. 

The  time  when  the  child  wants  this  something  to 
arrange  is  given  as  any  time  "between  the  ages  of 
one  and  three."  It  is  the  time  when  "his  g];eatest 
delight  consists  in  the  quick  alternation  of  building 
up  and  tearing  down." — P.,  p.  106. 


PLAY-MATERIAL  AND  ITS  PURPOSE        168 

At  first  the  little  one  will^be  satisfied  with  ar- 
ranging and  rearranging  the  cubes,  piling  them  one 
upon  another,  "  placing  one  before,  behind,  beside 
another."  Soon,  however,  he  will  try  to  make  some- 
thing definite,  and  "the  intelligent  nurse  interprets  the 
dim  idea  and  sees  whether  a  something,  a  table,  a 
chair,  etc.,  can  be  perceived  in  what  is  represented." 
Then  the  something  must  have  a  purpose,  so  the  chair 
is  grannie's  chair,  the  table  is  ready  for  the  soup,  and 
so  on. 

There  is  nothing  here  which  is  not  quite  a  usual 
proceeding.  Froebel's  peculiarity  of  treatment  comes 
from  his  desire  to  give  the  blocks  to  the  child  as  a 
whole  which  he  can  take  to  pieces.  This  is  the  reason 
of  the  traditional  proceeding,  perhaps  still  kept  up  in 
old-fashioned  kindergartens,  when  the  children  first  slip 
the  lid  out  a  little  way,  then  reverse  the  boxes,  pull 
out  the  lid  and  lift  it  off  the  box.  The  directions  are 
Froebel's  own,  and  are  given ; 

"in  order  to  furnish  to  the  child  at  once  clearly 
and  definitely,  the  impression  of  the  whole,  of 
the  self-contained  ;  from  this  perception,  as  the 
first  fundamental  perception  (Grundanschauung) 
all  proceeds  and  must  proceed." — P.,  p.  123. 

It  is  clear  that  this  meaning  is  quite  lost  when  the 
same  proceeding  is  forced  on  older  children,  who  are 
quite  accustomed  to  pull  down  and  build  up. 

Froebel  emphasizes  the  fact  that  the  pieces  are  of 
the  same  cubical  form  as  the  whole  thus  presented, 
and  adds : 

"Thus  fundamental  perceptions,  whole  and 
part,  form,  and  size,  are  made  clear  by  comparison 
and  contrast,  as  well  as  deeply  impressed  by 
repetition." — P.,  p.  119. 


164   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

It  is  in  speaking  of  this  simplest  of  toys  that 
Froebel  enters  a  strong  protest  against  the  complex 
and  useless  toys  which  afford  no  scope  for  childish 
activity. 

"Here,  then,  we  meet  a  very  great  imperfec- 
tion and  inadequateness — indeed  in  reference  to 
the  inner  development  of  the  child  an  obstructing 
element  in  that  which  is  now  so  frequently  pro- 
vided as  a  plaything  for  children ;  an  element 
which  slumbers  like  a  viper  under  roses — it  is,  in 
a  word,  the  already  too  complex  and  ornate,  too- 
finished  plaything.  The  child  can  begin  no  new 
thing  with  it,  cannot  produce  enough  variety  by 
means  of  it ;  his  power  of  creative  imagination, 
his  power  of  giving  form  to  his  own  idea,  are  thus 
actually  deadened.  For  when  we  provide  chil- 
dren with  too  finished  playthings  we  at  the  same 
time  deprive  them  of  the  incentive  to  perceive 
the  particular  in  the  general,  and  of  taking  the 
means  to  find  it.  .  .  .  What  presents  are  the 
most  prized  by  the  child  as  well  as  by  mankind 
in  general  ?  Those  which  afford  him  a  means  of 
unfolding  his  inner  life  most  purely  and  of  shaping 
it  in  a  varied  manner,  giving  it  freest  activity  and 
presenting  it  clearly." — P.,  p.  122. 

This  quotation  sets  forth  quite  plainly  the  main 
idea  underlying  all  the  varied  toys  or  play-material 
known  as  the  "Gifts  and  Occupations"  of  the  Kinder- 
garten. 

According  to  Mr.  Hailmann  and  other  writers,  the 
gifts  are  material  by  which  the  child  can  gain  ideas, 
and  the  occupations  furnish  material  for  gaining  skill. 
But  Mr.  Hailmann  allows  that  this  distinction,  which 
to  him  seems  important,  was  never  formulated  by 
Froebel. 


PLAY-MATERIAL  AND  ITS  PURPOSE        165 

Froebel's  psychological  knowledge,  in  fact,  was  in 
advance  of  that  of  his  interpreters.  He  knew  that  it 
was  by  action,  by  manipulation  of  material,  that  the 
child  gains  his  ideas  and  that  the  clear  distinction 
between  gift  and  occupation  which  to  Mr.  Hailmann 
is  "very  important"  is  on  the  contrary  actually  non- 
existent. 

Gifts  III  to  VI  are  boxes  of  building  blocks,  in- 
tended to  present  sequence  in  difficulty  of  manipu- 
lation, and  also  increasing  variety  of  form.  Because 
of  the  stress  he  laid  on  self-expression,  Froebel 
thought  very  highly  of  the  educational  possibilities  of 
a  box  of  bricks.  In  "The  Education  of  Man"  he 
writes  : 

"Look  into  this  education  room  of  eight  boys, 
seven  to  ten  years  old.  On  the  large  table  stands 
a  chest  of  building  blocks,  in  the  form  of  bricks, 
each  side  about  one-sixth  of  the  size  of  actual 
bricks,  the  finest  and  most  variable  material  that 
can  be  offered  a  boy  for  purposes  of  representa- 
tion. Sand  or  sawdust,  too,  have  found  their 
way  into  the  room,  and  fine  green  moss  has  been 
brought  in  abundantly  from  the  last  walk  in  the 
beautiful  pine  forest.  It  is  free  time,  and  each 
one  has  begun  his  own  work.  There  in  a  corner 
stands  a  chapel.  .  .  .  there  a  building  which 
represents  a  castle.  .  .  ." — E.,p.  108. 

After  the  bricks  come  the  coloured  tablets  of  Gift 

VII,  which  children  from  four  and  upwards,  if  left  free, 
often  highly  appreciated  as  material  for  making  patterns ; 
and  the  Sticks  or  splints  of  various  lengths  of  Gift 

VIII,  with  which  they  used  to  lay  outlines  of  familiar 
objects.  English  children  often  use  burnt  matches  for 
this,  sometimes  they  do  the  same  thing  with  "  mother's 
pin-box,"  and  a  child  quite  innocent  of  Kindergarten 


166   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

ideas  has  been  seen  to  appropriate  the  various  nails 
of  a  tool-box  to  the  same  purpose.  Along  with  the 
sticks  Froebel  supplied  rings  of  metal  or  paper ;  the 
little  English  child  who  used  the  nails  took  small 
curtain  rings  for  the  petals  of  her  flower  and  screw  nails 
for  its  stalk.  In  Gift  IX  the  child  is  presented  with 
very  small  articles  for  stringing  or  arranging — beads, 
coloured  beans,  pebbles,  etc.  A  child's  pleasure  in  this 
material  and  in  the  sticks  and  rings  probably  shows 
that  he  is  ready  to  practise  movements  of  the  thumbs 
and  forefingers.  Froebel  said  that  the  use  of  these 
sticks  called  the  child's  attention  to  "linear  pheno- 
mena," and  I  have  already  mentioned  that  many  years 
ago,  when  we  were  still  using  Froebel's  play-material, 
I  heard  a  child  call  out,  "  Oh,  I'm  making  lines  !  " 
just  after  he  had  been  using  the  sticks.  The  other 
children  contentedly  went  on  rubbing  with  the  crayons ; 
but  this  young  discoverer  continued  to  make  laborious 
lines,  always  from  left  to  right,  till  the  work  was 
completed  to  his  satisfaction. 

The  remaining  "Gifts"  include  coloured  paper  to 
fold  and  cut  either  to  produce  such  objects  as  boats, 
boxes,  purses,  chairs,  etc.,  or  to  form  patterns,  or  to 
weave  together  for  the  well-known  paper  mat ;  draw- 
ing and  paper  materials  ;  modelling  clay  and  sand, 
and  so  on. 

The  weakness  of  the  series  is  the  semi-psychologicaj 
semi-mathematical  arrangement,  which  has  been  dealt 
with  in  the  following  chapter.  What  Froebel  meant  to 
do  was  to  pick  out  from  among  the  material  he  saw 
given  to  children,  or  appropriated  by  them,  those 
things  which  seemed  to  him  best  adapted  to  call  out 
the  activities  of  children  at  various  ages  or  stages,  in 
accordance  with  his  idea  that  "the  man  advanced  in 
insight  should  make  clear  to  himself  the  purpose  of 
playthings,   viz.  to  help  the  child  to  express  himself, 


PLAY-MATERIAL  AND  ITS  PURPOSE        167 

and  to  bring  the  phenomena  of  the  outer  worid  nearer 
to  him." 

Surprise  has  often  been  expressed  that  Froebel 
did  not  include  such  toys  as  dolls  in  his  series. 

One  reason  is  that  he  did  not  live  long  enough, 
for  he  does  speak  of  doll-play  and  says  that  later  the 
time  will  come  "when  we  shall  speak  of  the  doll  and 
the  hobby-horse  as  the  plays  of  the  awakening  life  of 
the  girl  and  of  the  boy."  In  his  brief  reference  he 
does  speak  of  the  child's  own  nature  becoming  objec- 
tive through  the  doll-play,  and  he  adds  that  by  such 
play  she  "anticipates  and  feels  her  destiny."  He  notes, 
too,  with  interest  that: 

"Little  girls  make  their  favourite  dolls  of  the 
heavy  bootjack  or  like  piece  of  wood.  I  was 
informed  by  a  mother  that  a  heavy  sandbag 
which  she  accidentally  found  became  her  most 
cherished  doll,  because  it  had  in  it  the  weight  of 
an  actual  child,  and  so  she  gave  herself  up  to  the 
illusion  and  imagined  herself  to  be  carrying  a  real 
child." 

Undoubtedly  Froebel  was  right  in  demanding 
simple  toys  and  in  characterizing  the  "too  complex 
toy"  as  a  "viper  under  the  roses,"  and  also  in  de- 
manding that  toys  should  be  carefully  considered  and 
chosen  so  as  to  meet  the  needs  of  the  child's 
developing  mind.  But  the  plays  and  the  toys  of  a 
developing  child  cannot  be  definitely  prescribed,  and 
every  similar  attempt  is  likely  to  fail,  as  Froebel's 
has  done.  In  his  choice,  Froebel  was  biased  by  the 
great  idea  which  obsessed  him,  the  idea  of  develop- 
ment. Like  all  human  beings,  he  had  the  defects  of 
his  virtues,  and  it  is  to  these  defects  that  we  must 
now  turn  our  attention. 


CHAPTER  IX 

Weak  Points  Considered 

AN  honest  attempt  to  show  what  credit  is  due  to 
Froebel,  for  the  remarkable  anticipations  of 
modern  theories  on  which  he  based  his  pedagogy, 
seems  to  involve  the  opposite  process  of  inquiring 
whether  or  not  any  of  his  practices  can  be  shown  to 
have  an  unsound  basis. 

The  modern  boys'  school,  with  a  few,  and  a  very 
few  exceptions,  does  not  even  approach  the  school  at 
Keilhau  as  a  place  of  real  education,  as  any  one  may 
see  who  reads  the  account  given  of  it  by  Georg  Ebers. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  modern  Kindergarten  is  pro- 
bably in  many  ways  an  advance  upon  the  original 
attempts.  Many  practices  of  which  Froebel  approved 
are  now  discarded,  some  no  doubt  because  of  progress 
in  physiological  discovery  ;  we  know  now  that  a  child 
is  not  fitted  as  regards  nervous  development  and 
muscular  control  to  deal  with  fine  pricking  or  drawing 
in  chequers. 

But  a  better  knowledge  of  physiology  does  not 
account  for  all  the  changes  that  have  taken  place. 
Important  as  they  undoubtedly  were  in  Froebel's  eyes, 
the  modern  Kindergartener  is  inclined  to  smile  over 
her  predecessors'  "worship  of  the  'Gifts'";  and, 
though  we  are  agreed  as  to  the  importance  of  games, 
the  modern  teacher  chooses  from  a  wide,  perhaps  too 
wide  a  range,  and  no  longer  reposes  blind  faith  in  certain 
circle-games  with  their  supposed  "symbolic"  virtue. 


WEAK  POINTS  CONSIDERED  169 

To  some,  the  word  symbolic  will  at  once  suggest 
Froebel's  weakest  point,  others  will  resent  any  such 
idea,  for  symbolism  appeals  strongly  to  one  and  repels 
another.  For  Froebel  himself,  undoubtedly  the  whole 
world  was  symbolic,  in  so  far  as  he  regarded  the  uni- 
verse as  one  expression  of  the  Divine.  To  him,  as  to 
Browning : 

"  The    earth    has    speech   of    God's   writ   down,    no 
matter  if 
In  cursive  script  or  hieroglyph." 

But  this  has  not  affected  his  educational  practice  to 
the  extent  generally  supposed. 

At  the  same  time  it  does  seem  as  if  one,  if  not 
two,  psychological  errors  lie  at  the  root  of  certain 
practices  which  the  modern  Froebelian  has  discarded. 

It  would  be  most  unfair  to  Froebel  not  to  emphasize 
what  is  often  overlooked,  viz.  that  the  "Gifts"  were 
important  in  his  eyes  solely  because  he  believed  that 
in  them  he  was  presenting  toys,  or  "play-material," 
exactly  suited  to  the  succeeding  stages  of  the  child's 
development,  bodily  and  mental.  "The  new  gift,"  he 
says,  "  corresponds  both  to  the  child's  increasing  con- 
structive ability,  and  to  his  growing  capacity  to  com- 
prehend the  external  world."     And  he  writes  : 

"  But  such  a  course  of  training  and  occupations 
for  children  answering  to  the  laws  of  development 
and  the  laws  of  life,  demanded  a  thoroughly 
expressive  medium  in  the  shape  of  materials  for 
these  occupations  and  games  for  the  child  :  there- 
fore to  meet  this  point  I  have  arranged  a  series 
of  play  materials  under  the  title  of :  'A  complete 
series  of  gifts  for  play.' " — P.,  p.  250. 

It  should  also  be  noted  that  Froebel  did  not  com- 
mit the  mistake  of  inventing  new  toys.  What  he 
attempted  to  do  was  what  we  are  all  attempting  now. 


170      FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

viz.  to  use  what  natural  instinct  has  already  selected, 
as  a  basis  for  conscious  educational  work.  Balls  and 
building  blocks,  coloured  tablets  and  papers,  sand  and 
clay,  are  all  spontaneously  appropriated  by  normal 
children.  Even  these  materials  which  seem  to  us 
unchildlike  are  not  so  in  different  surroundings.  For 
instance,  in  the  Black  Forest,  one  may  watch  children 
playing  with  long  slivers  of  wood  exactly  like  Froebel's 
laths,  and  these  they  take  from  the  cut  logs  which  are 
being  hauled  up  for  winter  storage. 

Again,  it  is  only  fair  to  point  out  that  Froebel's 
followers  have  appropriated  material  which  he  sug- 
gested as  suited  to  children  aged  from  three  months 
to  five  or  six  years,  and  have  used  them  with  children 
from  four  or  five  to  six  or  seven  and  even  older.* 
Teachers  have  also  found  it  convenient  to  disregard 
Froebel's  frequent  warnings  not  to  interfere,  to  let 
the  child  "bang  and  pound"  when  he  wants  to,  to  let 
him  "play  quietly  and  thoughtfully  by  himself  as  long 
as  he  will,"  to  giveihim  "the  greatest  possible  freedom 
of  expression."  In  some,  at  least,  of  the  original 
text-books  on  Kindergarten  practice,  written  by 
Froebel's  early  disciples,  this  advice  is  totally  dis- 
regarded, and  we  find  prescribed  the  most  formal  of 
object  lessons,  dealing  with  the  properties  of  the  ball 
in  set  questions  and  answers  ;  only  at  the  end  comes 
"If  there  is  time,  the  children  may  be  allowed  to  roll 
thejjall." 

Still,  when  all  due  allowance  is  made,  there  remains 
the  fact  that  Froebel  attributed  far  too  much  import- 
ance to  the  series  of  toys  he  arranged,  and  in  addition 
to  this  he  must  be  held  in  large  measure  responsible  for 
the  extraordinary  amount  of  mathematical  perceptions 

*  The  material  can  of  course  be  used  at  any  age  provided  it 
conveys  suitable  ideas  in  a  suitable  manner.  Some  of  it  is  even  now 
found  useful  in  helping  senior  classes  to  realize  problems  in  area 
and  in  volume. 


WEAK  POINTS  CONSIDERED  171 

of  which  young  children  have  been  considered  capable, 
and  beneath  which  many  gleams  of  intelligence  may 
have  been  extinguished. 

r^  The  psychological  error  which  seems  to  underlie 
both  these  mistakes  in  pedagogy  seems  to  have  been 
that  of  making  too  much  of  the  outer  factor  in  the 
process  of  perception.  Froebel  was  quite  right  and 
quite  modern  in  refusing  to  draw  any  hard  and  fast 
line  between  sense  perception  and  thinking,  in  saying 
that  the  child  moves  "from  perception  of  a  thing, 
joined  with  thought  about  it,  up  to  pure  thought." 
But  he  must  have  failed  somehow,  sufficiently  to  grasp 
the  fact  that  all  that  is  present  to  sense  is  not  neces- 
sarily perceived,  that  perception  depends  not  merely 
upon  what  is  presented,  but  upon  previous  mind  con- 
tent. The  word  "apperception,"  though  apparently 
somewhat  fallen  into  disfavour  of  late,  has  certainly 
been  of  service  in  emphasizing  this  point. 

What  seems  strange  is  that  in  the  very  book,  in 
which  we  find  the  theory  disregarded  in  practice,  we 
find  Froebel  stating  the  theory  itself  in  the  plainest  of 
terms : 

"The  properties  and  nature  of  the  outer  world 
unfold  themselves  in  exact  proportion  to  the 
capacities  of  the  child." — P.,  p.  120. 

"  The  child  creates  his  own  world  for  himself ; 
it  is  at  once  the  expression  of  his  inward  realiza- 
tion of  the  external  world  and  its  surroundings, 
and  also  the  outward  representation  of  his  internal 
mental  world,  the  world  of  his  own  subjectivity." 
— L.,  p.  141. 

"Above  all,  it  is  the  old  within  the  new,  which 
clarifies,  unfolds  and  transmutes  itself,  thus 
developing  what  is  new.  .  .  .  We  must  not  re- 
quire of  the  child  anything  not  conditioned  by 
his  previous  achievements." — P.,  p.  169. 


172   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

No  one,  surely,  can  maintain  that  these  words  are 
carried  into  effect  in  e.g.  : 

"Could  forms  of  knowledge  (mathematical 
forms)  be,  for  a  child  of  one  to  three,  play  forms, 
and  thus  forms  produced  by  spontaneous  acti- 
vity ?  Well,  why  not  ?  Arrange  the  eight  part- 
cubes  together,  and  say,  'One  whole.'  But  divide 
it  immediately  and  say,  'Two  halves.'  .  .  .  Or, 
comparing  and  connecting  and  describing  by  song 
at  the  same  time  that  the  objects  are  manipu- 
lated : 

'  Look  here  and  see  !     One  whole  two  halves. 
One  half  two  fourths,  two  halves  four  fourths. 
One  whole  four  fourths. 
Four  fourths  eight  eighths. 
Eight  eighths  one  whole.' " — P.,  p.  138. 

There  is  certainly  no  "old  within  the  child"  of  one 
to  three,  which  can  "condition  this  achievement,  nor 
is  there  any  spontaneity.  For  the  child  a  little  older 
we  have : 

"The  hints  that  are  here  given  suffice  to  show 
that  the  knowledge  forms  are  adapted  to  children 
of  three  and  four  years  of  age,  and  that  they  incite 
plays  which  are  both  spontaneous  and  nourishing 
to  heart  and  intellect.  .  .  .  These  few  indications 
for  the  use  of  these  forms  must  suffice ;  they 
already  show  sufficiently  clearly  that  the  obser- 
vation and  comprehension  of  them  are  perfectly 
suited  to  the  active,  intellectual  and  emotional 
sides  of  children  three  and  four  years  of  age,  and 
to  actual  free  play  which  strengthens  intellect  and 
feeling."— P.,  p.  185. 

Now  the  "hints"  refer  to  making  clear  to  the  child, 
always  in  justice,  be  it  remembered,  in  the  concrete, 


WEAK  POINTS  CONSIDERED  173 

"as  perceptible  facts  only,"  such  points  as  "similarity 
of  size  with  dissimilarity  of  shape  and  position,  in  such 
words  as  : 

"Twice  as  long  and  half  as  wide, 
Half  as  long  and  twice  as  wide, 
The  same  size  are  we  two." 

Certainly  children  differ  very  much,  and  some  have 
a  special  aptitude  for  mathematical  relations,  but  to 
most  children  under  five  these  words  would  convey 
nothing.  Half  may  have  a  meaning,  though  at  that 
age  and  for  some  time  after  we  hear  of  "a  fair  half" 
and  "quarter"  is  generally  used  as  a  name  for  any 
fraction  recognized  as  not  a  half,  even  if  it  should  be 
greater.  Such  words  as  fourth  and  eighth  can  have  no 
meaning  for  a  child  who  shows  no  consciousness  of 
difference  when  shown  six,  seven  or  eight  objects.  At 
the  age  of  three,  an  average  child  recognizes  three 
objects,  but  when  a  fourth  is  added,  he  proceeds  to 
count  one  by  one,  he  does  not  recognize  three  plus  one. 

Again,  we  must  repeat  that  Froebel  never  intended 
any  mathematical  ideas  to  be  forced  upon  unwilling 
children.  He  constantly  tells  the  mother  not  to  force, 
and  he  frequently  speaks  of  the  child's  "accidental 
productions  which  will  become  a  point  of  departure 
for  his  self -development,"  through  the  explanatory 
rhymes,  to  be  sung  by  the  mother  in  order  to  call  the 
child's  attention  to  the  results  of  his  own  action.  It 
is  true,  too,  that  it  is  in  connection  with  this  kind  of 
work,  or  play,  that  Froebel  writes  of  "the  know- 
ledge-acquiring side  of  the  game,  which  is  the  quickly 
tiring  side." 

But  the  fact  remains  that  either  Froebel  made  a 
miscalculation  as  to  what  mathematical  ideas  are  within 
the  grasp  of  children  of  tender  age,  or  else  he  attributed 
too  much  consequence  to  what  is  outside.      It  is  indeed 


174   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

quite  possible  to  present  to  a  child  of  any  age, 
by  means  of  the  cubes  of  his  Fifth  Gift,  several  par- 
ticular instances  of  the  Theorem  of  Pythagoras,  as 
Froebel  suggests.  But  though  the  construction  is 
present  to  the  sense  of  both  child  and  adult,  the  career 
of  the  child  of  five  or  six,  who  perceives  or  apperceives 
the  relationship  of  the  squares  so  presented,  may  be 
watched  with  interest.  He.  is  likely  to  distinguish 
himself  in  mathematical  research,  should  he  live  long 
enough.  Froebel  ought  to  have  known,  indeed  he  did 
know,  for  he  taught  it  to  others,  that  the  child  does 
not  "quickly  tire"  of  acquiring  knowledge  suited  to 
his  stage  of  development  by  methods  equally  suitable. 
From  the  houses  and  railway  trains,  of  which  at  this 
stage  they  seem  never  to  tire,  children  probably  gain 
as  much  knowledge  as  Nature  means  them  to  absorb 
by  such  means.  In  Froebel' s  own  hands,  with  his 
real  and  sympathetic  understanding  of  the  need  for 
freedom  of  action,  probably  no  harm  was  done,  but  it 
is  easy  to  see  how  the  ordinary  teacher  would  grasp 
at  the  possibility  of  producing  mathematical  pro- 
digies through  what  was  supposed  to  be  play. 

The  same  error  seems  to  show  itself  in  various 
ways,  e.g.,  in  some  of  the  reasons  Froebel  gives  for 
choosing  his  First  Gift,  though  there  is  no  fault  to  be 
found  with  the  choice.  He  was  right  in  saying  that 
the  child  first  takes  in  a  whole,  not  a  variety  of 
elements,  to  be  combined  later.  Because  of  this  fact, 
the  ordinary  coral  and  bells,  with  all  its  complexity, 
is  just  as  much  a  whole  to  the  infant  as  the  woollen 
ball.  But  Froebel  does  seem  to  have  thought  that  he 
must  make  the  "outer  objects,"  or  toys  from  which 
the  child  is  to  gain  his  earliest  ideas,  as  simple  as  these 
ideas,  and  this  certainly  implies  a  wrong  view  of  per- 
ception. The  same  objection  might  be  taken  to 
Froebel' s    directions    as   to   how   the   Third    Gift — an 


rr 


WEAK  POINTS  CONSIDERED  175 

8-inch  cube,  cut  once  in  each  direction — is  to  be  pre- 
sented;  how  in  order  "to  furnish  to  the  child  clearly 
and  definitely  the  impression  of  the  whole,  of  the 
self-contained,  from  which  fundamental  perception 
everything  must  proceed,"  the  box  is  to  be  reversed, 
the  lid  slipped  out  and  the  box  is  to  be  lifted  "that 
the  play  thing  may  appear  as  a  cube  closely  united." 
But  in  this  case  Froebel  is  "presenting"  the  first  divided 
unit,  "something  which  may  be  taken  to  pieces, 
arranged  and  re-arranged  and  finally  re-constructed, 
for  it  is  "by  this  dismembering  and  re-constructing, 
and  perception  of  real  objects  that  true  knowledge  and 
pecially  self-knowledge  comes  to  the  child." 
\  A  second  psychological  error,  or  at  least  an  incon- 
sistency, seems  to  lie  at  the  root  of  certain  practical 
directions  Froebel  gives  with  regard  to  the  use  of  his 
toys.  In  spite  of  his  iteration  and  re-iteration  that 
the  child's  mind  is  a  unity,  that  though  separation  is 
"permitted  for  the  thinking  mind,"  there  is  none  in 
reality,  yet  in  his  anxiety  for  the  due  fostering  of  the 
whole,  of  the  "doing,  feeling  and  thinking"  his  har- 
monious development,  in  actual  practice  he  has  an 
attempted  separation  which  has  had  bad  results.  A 
Kindergarten  practice,  now  discontinued,  was  to  make 
the  children  build,  either  on  different  occasions,  or 
during  different  parts  of  one  lesson,  what  Froebel 
called  (a)  Life-forms  or  Objects  (Lebens  oder  Sach- 
formen),  i.e.  houses,  churches,  etc.  ;  {b)  Beauty  or 
Picture  forms  (Schonheits  oder  Bildformen),  i.e.  sym- 
metrical designs ;  and  (c)  Knowledge  or  Instruction 
forms  (Erkenntniss  oder  Lernformen),  i.e.  squares, 
triangles,  etc.  Though  this  classification  is  based  on 
the  familiar  and  important  "knowing,  willing  and 
feeling,"  yet  it  is  plain  that  a  child  may  experience 
quite  as  much  emotion,  probably  more,  in  building  a 
house  as  in  making  a  star  pattern,  and  that  the  active 


176   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

side  is  involved  in  every  kind  of  construction.  Froebel 
draws  a  parallel,  legitimate  to  a  certain  extent,  between 
intellect,  feeling  and  will  on  the  one  hand,  and  truth, 
beauty  and  usefulness  on  the  other.  Here,  however, 
we  can  quote  him  against  himself ;  "  Separation  is 
only  permitted  for  the  thinking  mind."  The  useful 
ought  to  be  beautiful,  there  is  beauty  in  all  truth, 
and  the  aesthetic  revelation  of  the  world  is  the  world 
in  order.  Beauty  degenerates  into  mere  ornament 
and  artificiality,  when  separated  from  life  and  use. 
"Mathematics,"  as  Froebel  wrote  himself,  "is  neither 
foreign  to  life,  nor  deduced  from  life ;  it  is  the 
expression  of  life  as  such:  its  nature  may  be  studied 
in  life,  and  life  may  be  studied  with  its  help.  .  .  . 
Mathematics  should  be  studied  more  physically  and 
dynamically  as  the  outcome  of  nature  and  energy." 
—E.,  p.  206-7. 

The  result  of  this  suggested  separation  has  in  past 
times  been  disastrous.  Failing  to  recognize  that  a 
young  child  is  of  necessity  exercising  his  intellectual 
power  in  constructing  his  castle  or  bridge  of  blocks, 
and  failing  still  more  to  realize  that  ornament  is  far 
from  synonymous  with  beauty,  teachers  have  wearied 
and  stupefied  children  with  mathematical  forms  for 
which  they  were  not  ready,  and  have  forced  upon  them 
symmetrical  designs  when  their  souls  hungered  for 
"puffer  trains."* 

It  is  easy  to  show  that  what  Froebel  wanted  was 
only  due  attention  to  what  we  now  call  the  affective 
and  conative  as  well  as  to  the  intellectual.  From  the 
very  first  he  insists  on  this,   and  justly,   though  his 

*  Many  years  ago,  a  young  teacher  came  to  me  for  help.  She  had 
been  told  to  give  her  class  number  lessons,  for  a  whole  term,  from 
Gift  III,  which  consists  of  eight  little  cubes,  and  the  children  had  long 
since  grasped  4  +  4,  6  +  2,  5  +  3,  and  8  — 4,  8  —  2,  etc.  I  suggested 
that  she  should  leave  the  number  out  and  let  the  children  play  with 
the  blocks.  "Oh!  I  mayn't  do  that,"  was  the  answer,  "they  have 
building  with  Gift  IV." 


WEAK  POINTS  CONSroERED  177 

way  of  doing  it  may  seem  to  us  quaint.     About  the 
child's  imitation  of  the  clock  he  writes  : 

"As  soon  as  the  child's  first  capacity  for  speech 
is  somewhat  developed,  we  notice  how  he  tries,  in 
and  by  the  movement,  to  listen  to  the  tone  and 
to  imitate  it  with  the  tone  of  his  own  voice.  Tic 
tac,  we  hear  him  say,  imitating  the  movement  of 
the  pendulum  ;  pirn  paum  (ding  dong  ?)  he  says 
when  the  sound  is  more  noticed.  ...  So  we  must 
observe  that  even  when  he  first  begins  to  speak 
the  child  expresses  and  retains  the  physical  part 
of  the  movement  by  tic  tac,  but  by  pirn  paum  he 
perceives  the  movement  more,  if  one  may  say  so, 
from  the  feeling  in  the  mind,  and  if  I  may  be 
allowed  so  to  express  myself,  by  the  '  here  and 
there '  which  comes  later,  the  child  catches  hold 
(festhalten)  of  the  movement  more  as  a  thing  of 
comparison,  of  recognition,  and  in  his  dawning 
thought,  more  intellectually.  ...  It  is  most 
important  that  the  mother  should  observe  the 
first  and  slightest  traces  of  the  articulation 
(Gliederung)  of  the  child  as  an  active,  emotional 
and  intellectual  being,  and  watch  it  in  his  develop- 
ment from  existence  to  experience  and  thought, 
so  that  in  his  development  no  side  of  his  nature 
should  be  cultivated  at  the  cost  of  the  others,  nor 
should  any  be  repressed  or  neglected  for  the  sake 
of  the  others.  It  seems  important,  and  we  believe 
that  all  who  quietly  observe  the  child  have  re- 
marked, or  will  yet  remark,  that  from  the  first 
the  child  expresses  the  swinging  movement  in  a 
singing  tone,  in  a  tone  which  approaches  song 
and  so  serves  the  emotional  nature.  Thus  early 
is  it  shown  that  the  real  foundation,  the  starting- 
point  for  the  education  of  humanity  and  so  of  the 
child,  is  the  heart  and  the  emotions  (das  Gemiith 


178   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

u.  die  Gemiithliche),  but  that  training  to  action 
and  thought  (zur  That  u.  zum  Denken),  the  phy- 
sical and  the  intellectual  goes  with  it  side  by 
side  constantly  and  inseparably.  Thought  forms 
itself  in  action,  and  action  clears  itself  in  thought, 
but  both  must  have  their  roots  in  the  emotions." 
—P.,  p.  41. 

Two  further  reasons  may  be  given  for  Froebel's 

belief  in  his  selected  series  of  toys  :    {a)  his  delight  in 

the  theory  of  development,  and   {h)  his  eagerness  to 

/  bring  the  child  as  soon  as  possible  to  that  consciousness 

'     of  self  which  differentiates  man  from  the  lower  animals. 

Every  sign  of  unity  of  plan  within  the  universe 
gave  Froebel  real  joy,  and  he  traces  development  from 
the  simple  to  the  complex,  from  the  undifferentiated 
to  the  differentiated,  not  only  in  plant  and  animal  life, 
but  also  in  the  inorganic.  Much  of  what  he  says  on 
crystals  may  be  fanciful,  but  much  is  beautiful  and 
suggestive.  "  Chemical  combination  "  is  to  him  "  the 
life  of  the  inorganic  world,"  and  he  writes  : 

"  We  have  in  this  a  new  confirmation  of  the 
law  of  development  in  crystals,  the  passing  from 
special-sidedness  to  all-sidedness,  from  imperfec- 
tion to  perfection  as  the  law  of  all  develop- 
ment in  nature.  Man,  then,  appears  as  the  most 
perfect  earthly  being,  in  whom  all  that  is  corporeal 
appears  in  highest  equilibrium  and  in  whom  the 
primordial  force  is  fully  spiritualized,  so  that  man 
feels,  understands,  and  knows  his  own  power. 
But  while  man  externally  and  corporeally  has 
attained  equilibrium  and  symmetry  of  form, 
there  heave  and  surge  in  him,  viewed  as  a  spiritual 
being,  appetites,  desires  and  passions. 

"As  in  the  world  of  crystals  we  noticed  the 
heaving  and  surging  of  simple  energy,  and  in  the 


WEAK  POINTS  CONSIDERED  179 

vegetable   and   animal   worlds,    the   heaving   and 
surging  of  living  forces,  so  here  the  heaving  and 
surging  of  spiritual  forces.     Therefore  man  with 
reference  to  spiritual  development  has  returned  to 
a  first  stage  as  crystals  are  in  a  first  stage  with 
reference    to    the    development    of    life.  .  .  .  For 
this  reason  the  boy  should  at  an  early  period  be 
taught  to  see  Nature  in  all  her  diversity  as  a  unit, 
as  a  great  living  whole,  as  a  thought  of  God.     The 
integrity  of  Nature,  as  a  continually  self-develop- 
ing whole  must  be  shown  him  at  an  early  period." 
—E.,  p.  198. 
Although   this   particular   passage   was   written   in 
connection  with  Nature  Study  for  older  boys,  yet  it 
is  from  thoughts  such  as  these  that  Froebel  seems  to 
have  taken  an  idea  that  man-in-infancy  ought  to  meet, 
if  it  may  be  so  expressed,  matter-in-infancy.     Though 
everything  in  the  surroundings  was  to  help  to  bring 
about   self-consciousness,    "  the   air   blowing  about  all 
living    creatures,    as    well    as    the    arousing    spiritual 
language  of  words,"   yet  that   definite  thing-in-itself, 
which  is  to  help  the  child  to  an  early  dim  consciousness 
of  self  is  to  be  "  the  counterpart  of  himself,"  a  simple 
undifferentiated   whole   "  susceptible   of   a   progressive 
development." 

And  now  we  must  come  to  the  question  of  Froebel' s 
*'  Symbolism,"  a  thorny  subject,  because  one  into 
which  the  personal  equation  enters  largely.  Some 
writers,  notably  Miss  Susan  Blow,  author  of  "  Sym- 
bolic Education,"  regard  this  symbolism  as  all- 
important,  Froebel' s  glory  rather  than  his  weakness. 
Others  consider  that  it  appeals  to  adults  alone  and 
that  where  it  is  supposed  to  affect  children  it  tends 
towards  artificiality  and  sentimentality.  In  so  far  as 
this  is  true,  it  must  be  regarded  as  a  weak  point. 

It  is,  however,  not  an  easy  task  to  settle  what  ideas 


180      FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

are  covered  by  the  term  "  Froebel's  symbolism."  The 
dictionary  meaning  for  symbol  is  "  a  visible  sign  or 
representation  of  an  idea  ;  anything  which  suggests 
an  idea,  as  by  resemblance  or  convention  ;  an  emblem ; 
a  representation  ;  a  type  ;  a  figure  ;  as  the  lion  is  the 
symbol  of  courage  and  the  lamb  of  meekness  or 
patience." 

It  certainly  passes  my  comprehension  how  any- 
thing can  symbolize  an  idea  not  yet  acquired,  however 
much  it  may  help  in  calling  up  ideas  already  more  or 
less  clearly  gained.  The  crown  may  symbolize  power 
to  an  adult,  but  not  to  the  child,  who  when  told  that 
Stephen  and  Matilda  fought  for  the  crown,  innocently 
inquired :  "  Couldn't  they  have  had  another  one 
made  ?  "  The  Union  Jack  may  symbolize  British 
nationality  or  British  freedom,  or  even  British  Jingo- 
ism to  adults  who  already  possess  these  ideas,  but 
not  to  a  little  child.  On  the  other  hand,  any  kind  of 
celebration  appeals  to  children,  as  to  more  primitive 
people,  and  to  be  allowed  to  march  round  the  play- 
ground on  Empire  Day  carrying  a  flag  arouses  a  joyous 
emotion,  which  will  later  be  interwoven  with  patriotic 
ideas  of  various  kinds.  It  is  decidedly  open  to  ques- 
tion whether  as  regards  the  child  Froebel  himself 
intended  much  more  than  this,  whatever  his  followers 
may  have  done. 

Professor  Thorndyke  gives  us  to  understand  that 
Froebel  says  a  child  plays  with  a  ball  because  it  sym- 
bolizes "  infinite  development  and  absolute  limitation." 
Now  it  is  true  that  Froebel  wrote  in  his  "  Aphorisms  " 
— quoted  in  a  footnote  to  Hailmann's  "  Education  of 
Man  " — "  The  spherical  is  the  symbol  of  diversity  in 
unity  and  of  unity  in  diversity.  ...  It  is  infinite 
development  and  absolute  limitation."  But  the 
"  Aphorisms "  were  not  written  for  children,  and 
Kallmann  quotes  the  passage  in  speaking  of  Froebel's 


WEAK  POINTS  CONSIDERED  181 

philosophical   doctrines  as  to  the  ultimate  nature  of 
force  and  matter  ! 

To  Froebel,  Spirit  is  everywhere  striving  for  utter- 
ance. The  Universe — the  Manifold — is  the  revelation 
of  one  great  mind,  and  everything  in  Nature,  "  though 
soundless  it  be  to  the  ear,  a  message  can  give  em- 
blematic (sinnbildlich)  but  clear."  Certainly,  he  would 
have  the  boy  study  Nature,  "  the  writing  and  book  of 
God,  but  it  is  not  to  the  boy  that  he  says  : 

"  The  works  speak,  by  the  form  the  Spirit 
manifests  itself.  By  that  which  has  been  pro- 
duced and  created,  the  nature  and  spirit  of  the 
producer  and  creator  make  themselves  known. 
The  world  must  therefore  necessarily  manifest  the 
nature  of  its  original  cause — the  spirit  of  its 
Creator." 

For  Froebel  as  for  Goethe,  the  Time  Spirit  "  weaves 
for  God  the  garment  we  see  Him  by."  He  calls  "  the 
temporal  an  expression  of  the  eternal,  the  material  a 
manifestation  of  the  spiritual."  He  speaks  of  "the 
Power  which  reveals  itself  by  uniting  all  things,  in 
Nature  in  the  Universe  as  weight,  in  human  life  as 
Love,"  and  it  pleases  him  to  put  into  the  hand  of  the 
boy — ^in  that  picture  of  a  family  group  by  which  he 
typifies  Humanity — a  ball  hanging  by  a  string,  and 
this  he  calls  an  emblem  or  symbol  (Sinnbild). 

There  is  nothing  in  all  this  with  which  any  one 
need  quarrel.  Froebel  was  assuredly  an  idealist,  but 
in  these  days  that  is  no  longer  a  term  of  reproach. 
No  one,  to  whom  it  does  not  appeal,  need  use  the 
suggestion,  but  to  those  of  us  who  believe  that  right 
guidance  of  a  child's  delight  in  fairy  tales  is  one  way 
of  developing  his  sense  of  reverence,  there  is  nothing 
so  very  far  fetched  even  in  Froebel' s  way  of  trying  to 
bring  to  the  child's  consciousness,  the  spirit  striving 


182   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

for  utterance  not  only  in  every  beautiful  form,  but  in 
everything  beautiful  as  he  does  in  "  The  Smell  Song." 

Of  fairy  tales  Froebel  says  : 

"  The  child,  like  the  man,  would  like  to  know 
the  meaning  of  what  happens  around  him.  This 
is  the  foundation  of  the  Greek  choruses,  especially 
in  tragedies.  This,  too,  is  the  foundation  of  many 
legends  and  fairy  tales,  and  it  is  the  result  of  the 
deeply-rooted  consciousness  of  being  surrounded 
by  that  which  is  higher  and  more  conscious  than 
ourselves." — P.,  p.  147. 

So,  when  the  child  delights  in  the  scent  of  the 
flower,  Froebel  says  to  the  mother  :  "  Let  your  child 
find  in  all  things  a  mind,  a  struggle  for  being.  Colour 
form  and  spicy  smell  all  forthtell  the  One  ruling  hand 
which  called  all  into  existence."  But  all  she  is  told 
to  pass  on  to  the  child  is  only  the  thought  that  an  angel 
has  put  the  scent  there  and  is  saying  :  "  The  little  one 
does  not  see  me,  but  without  me  there  would  be  no 
fragrance." 

Although  in  one  sense  the  educator  of  young  chil- 
dren need  have  no  dealings  at  all  with  "  symbolism," 
yet  in  another,  a  walking-stick  does,  for  the  boy  who 
bestrides  it,  symbolize,  a  horse,  as  a  piece  of  wood  may 
symbolize  for  his  little  sister  the  infant  whom  she  may 
nurse  and  caress,  with  what  Froebel  calls  "  the  dim 
and  transferred  perception  of  inner  life."  Here 
Froebel  seems  quite  right,  as  when  in  speaking  of  a 
child's  visit  to  a  toyshop  he  says,  "  a  true  child  is 
content  with  very  little  of  the  outer,  he  is  satisfied  by 
a  doll  or  cart,  a  whistle  or  a  sheep,  provided  only  that 
in  or  through  it  he  can  find  his  own  world  and  repre- 
sent it  in  actual  deeds." — M.,  p,  199. 

It  may  be  said,  too,  that  there  is  symbolism  in 
children's  drawings,  the  animal  or  object  is  symbolized 


WEAK  POINTS  CONSIDERED  183 

by  that  which  to  the  child  is  the  most  outstanding 
characteristic.  One  small  boy  drew  a  camel  with  a 
rider  so  small  that  some  one  protested  he  could  not 
see  over  the  hump,  so  the  artist  promptly  drew  a 
second  rider  in  front.  Being  asked  if  he  could  draw 
an  elephant,  he  assented  cheerfully  and  added  a  trunk 
to  his  camel.  By  the  addition  of  claws  the  elephant 
became  a  cat,  but  at  that  point  he  paused,  remarking, 
"  It's  not  very  like  a  cat,  it's  more  like  a  bird,"  and  a 
pair  of  wings  completed  the  transformations.  In  like 
manner  by  help  of  a  walking  stick  a  child  becomes  his 
own  father,  and  a  pair  of  spectacles  transforms  him 
into  his  grandmother.  But  in  all  such  cases  the  child 
is  dealing  with  ideas  he  has  already  grasped. 

To  say  that  circle  or  ring  games  help  a  child  to 
gain  an  idea  of  unity — Ring  a  Ring  of  Roses  may  give 
the  first  dim  idea  of  corporate  unity — ^is  a  very  differ- 
ent thing  from  saying  that  a  circle  is  to  the  child  a 
symbol  of  unity.  This  is  the  kind  of  thing,  however, 
that  Froebel  is  supposed  to  have  said,  but  after  careful 
investigation  one  is  surprised  to  find  how  little  there 
is,  and  to  what  extent  Froebel' s  disciples  and 
translators  seem  to  have  read  in  their  own  inter- 
pretations. 

For  instance,  in  searching  for  passages  about  sym- 
bolism, we  find  in  the  English  translation  of  the  paper 
on  Movement  Plays,  a  passage  stating  that  the  "  Snail 
Game "  forms  a  frequent  conclusion  to  a  "  games  " 
period,  because  it  yields  the  form  of  the  circle,  "  which 
is  symbolic  of  wholeness,"  On  comparing  this  with 
the  original,  however,  we  find  that  this  phrase  is  an 
addition  of  the  translator's.  No  doubt  she  considered 
it  explanatory,  but  all  that  Froebel  himself  says  is  that 
the  game  is  suitable  "  because  it  finally  unites  all  the 
players  in  a  lively  and  completely  finished  whole."  To 
practical  teachers,  who  know  the  difficulty  of  getting 


184   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

a  number  of  children  to  settle  down  after  a  game,  this 
may  bear  a  very  different  meaning. 

It  seems  to  me  that  Froebel's  translators  have 
been  altogether  too  fond  of  the  word  "  symbolic." 
The  German  words  usually  translated  "symbol"  and 
"symbolic"  are  "Sinnbild"  and  "Vorbild,"  with  their 
respective  adjectives.  After  considering  innumerable 
passages  in  which  these  words  occur  it  seems  plain 
that  Froebel's  meaning  would  often  have  been  better 
expressed  by  "typical,"  or  by  "significant,"  and 
sometimes  by  "metaphorical." 

For  instance,  it  is  quite  legitimate  to  say  of  such 
perceptions  as  Froebel  intended  a  child  to  gain  from 
his  second  "  Gift " — resistance,  weight,  hardness  and 
softness,  noise,  etc. — that  the  ball  and  cube  give,  and  are 
only  intended  to  give,  "normal,  fundamental  and  typical 
perceptions "  (nur  die  normalen,  begriindenden  und 
vorbildlichen  Anschauungen),  and  Froebel  goes  on  to 
say  that  the  same  perceptions  must  come  from  many 
other  objects.  There  is  nothing  symbolic  here,  and 
there  is  no  reason  for  using  this  word. 

That  in  many  passages  significant  would  be  a  much 
more  correct  translation  than  symbolic  is  abundantly 
evident.  Froebel  was  convinced,  and  most  people  will 
now  agree  with  him,  that  there  is  real  meaning  or 
significance  in  those  activities,  which  are  common  to 
children  of  all  countries,  and  this  meaning  he  endea- 
vours to  discover.  Small  blame  to  him  if,  though 
wonderfully  correct  on  the  whole,  he  sometimes  hits 
upon  a  wrong  meaning,  in  which  case  we  are  apt  to  fall 
back  upon  that  convenient  scapegoat,  his  symbolism. 

In  one  of  his  letters  he  thanks  his  cousin  for 
describing  to  him  how  she  had  watched  a  tiny  child 
"  who  quietly  let  his  eye  travel  from  the  ball  hanging 
at  the  end  of  its  cord,  up  to  the  hand  which  held  it," 
and  he  adds  : 


WEAK  POINTS  CONSIDERED  185 

"  I  am  convinced,  and  I  wish  that  all  teachers, 
and  especially  all  mothers,  shared  in  the  convic- 
tion, that  the  very  earliest  phenomena  of  child- 
life  are  full  of  symbolic  meaning,  that  is  to  say, 
they  indicate  the  higher,  the  intellectual  life  in  the 
child  and  his  individual  peculiarities  at  the  same 
time.  Our  duty  is  to  search  in  everything  for  its 
ultimate  basis,  its  point  of  origin,  its  well-spring  ; 
and  to  make  clear  the  connection  between  the 
outward  manifestation  and  its  inward  cause." — L., 
p.  101. 

What  Froebel  deduced  from  the  incident  was 
*'  that  the  child  looks  not  only  at  the  appearance  of 
the  swinging  ball,  but  for  the  cause  of  the  swinging 
phenomenon,  the  supporting,  rfioving  hand.  So  it  is 
plain  that  for  "  full  of  symbolism  "  we  should  here 
read  "full  of  significance."  Or,  again,  in  his  excellent 
sketch  of  early  boyhood,  with  its  desire  to  share  the 
work  of  the  father,  its  desire  to  explore,  to  collect,  to 
construct,   etc.,  Froebel  concludes  : 

"  Thus  it  is  certain  that  very  many  of  the 
boy's  actions  have  an  inner,  an  intellectual  im- 
portance, that  they  indicate  his  mental  tendencies 
and  are  therefore  symbolical" — E.,  p.  118. 

Here,    again,    significant   would    be    a    better    English 
translation  than  symbolical. 

Again,  in  accordance  with  his  belief  in  instinct, 
Froebel  declares  that  it  is  his  "  firm  conviction  that 
wherever  we  find  anything  that  gives  children  ever 
freshly  a  joy  belonging  to  real  life  there  is  at  the  bottom 
of  it  something  important  for  a  child's  life."  When 
he  sees  that  children  often  enjoy  going  to  church  and 
joining  in  the  singing  at  an  age  when  the  words  can 
have  no  meaning,  he  says :  "  All  the  spontaneous 
activity  of  child-life  is  symbolical  (Sinnbildlich)."     But 


186   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

there  is  not  a  word  of  anything  that  is  ordinarily  called 
"  symbolical  "  in  what  follows,  so  far  as  the  child  is 
concerned.  The  little  one  is  supposed  to  have 
"  reached  a  new  life-stage,"  viz.  "  the  dim  anticipation 
that  he  is  not  alone  in  life,  but  one  amid  mankind." 
Consequently  he  is  attracted  by  "  assembly  life."  The 
most  ardent  believer  in  symbolism  can  make  little  of 
the  very  practical  answers  the  mother  is  told  to  give 
to  the  child's  questions.  He  is  to  be  answered  "  out 
of  the  range  of  his  own  experience,  feelings  and  ideas, 
his  own  intellectual  development  and  necessities." 
He  is  to  be  told  that  when  he  is  old  enough  to  go  to 
church,  he  will  not  only  like  to  hear  the  organ,  but 
will  find  out  "  why  flowers  bloom  and  birdies  sing  and 
why  we  still  remember  Christmas  Day." 

There  is  another  child  in  the  Mother  Songs,  who 
wants  to  visit  the  moon,  and  drags  his  mother  towards 
the  ladder  that  he  may  climb  up.  According  to  the 
translator  Froebel  says  he  wants  to  point  out  "  the 
higher  symbolical  meaning."  But  what  he  says  is 
that  one  remark  presses  itself  upon  him,  how  "  we 
ought  to  cultivate  intelligently  the  child's  observation 
of  and  pleasure  in  the  moon,  and  in  the  night  sky,  and 
not  let  this  sink  into  the  formlessness  and  emptiness 
of  mere  wonder."  For  example,  it  is,  he  says,  quite 
as  easy  to  tell  a  child  that  the  moon  is  a  beautiful 
bright  swimming  ball,  as  to  say  it  is  a  man ;  or  that 
the  stars  are  sparkling  suns  which  look  small  because 
they  are  far  away,  as  to  call  them  "  golden  pins,"  and 
he  adds  "  Truth  never  injures,  but  error  always  does." 

There  are  certainly  some  instances  in  which  Froebel 
found  for  the  tendencies  and  actions  of  children,  a 
meaning  that  does  not  commend  itself  to  common 
sense,  but  as  a  rule  he  only  "  ventures  to  suggest " 
rather  than  insists,  and  his  practical  application  is 
generally  unobjectionable.     We  assent  willingly,  when 


WEAK  POINTS  CONSIDERED  187 

Froebel  tells  us  that  rhythmic  movement,  passive  as 
well  as  active,  is  the  earliest  beginning  of  all  ordered 
activity.  But  we  smile  when,  in  accounting  for  the 
childish  interest  in  clocks,  after  allowing  for  the 
mystery,  he  goes  on  : 

"Let  me  hold  the  opinion  that  a  deeply  slumber- 
ing notion  of  the  importance  of  time  lies  at  the 
bottom  of  the  pleasure  children  take  in  playing 
with  a  clock." — M.,  p.  139. 

As  he  truly  and  naively  remarks,  "  this  opinion  of 
mine  hurts,  as  an  opinion,  neither  the  child  nor  any 
one  else,"  and  the  application  may,  even  in  this  in- 
stance, be  useful  as  he  says  it  is,  viz.  that  we  shoidd 
use  this  pleasure  to  instil  the  beginnings  of  punctuality 
or  law  and  order.  As  an  opinion  it  is  not  worthy  of 
Froebel' s  insight,  and  we  can  only  say  that  instances 
of  this  kind  are  really  negligible,  though  some  have 
been  unnecessarily  emphasized  by  certain  Froebelians 
to  whom  they  appeal. 

There  are,  it  is  true,  a  few  instances  which  deserve 
the  strictures  which  have  been  heaped  up  somewhat 
rashly.  It  is  only  put  as  a  question,  but  Froebel  does 
say  of  children's  pleasure  in  circle  games,  "  May  not 
their  delight  spring  from  the  longing  and  efforts  to  get 
an  all-round,  or  all-sided,  grasp  of  an  object  ?  " 

As  to  metaphor,  Froebel  delights  in  this  ;  his  bent 
of  mind  is  to  take  pleasure  in  all  analogies,  and  he 
suggests  that  the  mother  should  make  more  use  of  the 
metaphors  implied  in  ordinary  language.  For  example, 
he  speaks  of  "the  transferred  moral  meaning  of  such 
words  and  phrases  as  '  straight  and  straightforward,' 
and  of  '  walking  in  crooked  paths.*  "  In  using  little 
finger  plays  to  give  a  child  control  over  his  hands,  the 
mother  is  told  to  think  how  important  for  later  life 
is  "  the  right  handling  of  things,  in  the  actual  as  well 


188   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

as  in  the  figurative  sense."  The  wise  mother  is  repre- 
sented as  cherishing  the  child's  love  of  light  and  bright- 
ness, saying,  "  Never  shrink  away  from  light "  ;  and 
while  she  shows  the  picture  she  says,  "  Here  is  a  boy 
who  has  broken  the  window  and  now  he  must  go  a 
long  way  to  fetch  the  glazier  unless  he  can  content 
himself  with  a  dark  board  that  will  keep  out  the  dear 
bright  light.  You  must  not  heedlessly  stop  Light's 
entering  your  heart  and  mind,  for  if  you  do,  you  will 
have  to  buy  it  back  by  trouble  and  loss  of  time  lest 
heart  and  mind  become  dark.  Open  your  door  and 
little  window  to  the  light."  Thus  she  makes  the  child 
"  see  inner  things  through  the  outer,"  and  uses  his 
pleasure  in  light  to  make  him  hate  deeds  of  darkness. 
But  there  is  no  harm  in  all  this,  the  words  are  used  as 
a  clergyman  uses  the  half-dozen  words  of  his  text, 
as  a  germ  of  thought  which  he  cultivates,  as  a  finger- 
post pointing  the  way  in  which  our  minds  may  travel. 
And  Froebel,  like  the  clergyman,  sometimes  travels 
far  from  the  branching  of  the  roads. 

Froebel' s  curious  attempts  at  etymology  ought 
perhaps  to  be  mentioned  as  a  weak  point,  though 
they  really  do  not  affect  his  theories,  psychological  or 
educational,  one  way  or  another.  The  ball,  as  the 
child's  first  object  through  which  he  gains  his  first 
perceptions  of  solidity,  weight,  mass,  etc.,  is  described 
as  on  that  account  "  an  image  of  the  universe  "  (der 
B — all  ist  der  Bild  des  Alles).  The  thought  is  worth 
having,  the  pseudo-etymology  does  not  much  matter. 

To  sum  up,  then,  there  is  mysticism  in  Froebel' s 
writings  as  addressed  to  the  adult,  and  with  this  no 
one  has  any  right  to  quarrel  even  if  it  should  not  appeal 
to  him  or  her  personally.  But  an  undue  preponderance 
has  been  given  to  this  side  of  Froebel  by  those  to 
whom  it  appeals,  or  so  it  seems  to  me.  It  does  not 
appeal  to  me,  nor  can  I  perceive  that  it  affects  to  any 


WEAK  POINTS  CONSIDERED  189 

appreciable  extent  the  educational  theories  based  on 
the  psychological  grounds  so  carefully  considered  by 
Froebel.  To  writers  like  Miss  Blow,  the  author  of 
"  Symbolic  Education,"  such  a  statement  would  no 
doubt  seem  outrageous.  With  intellectual  people  pos- 
sessed of  Miss  Blow's  philosophic  insight,  children 
may  be  safe  from  artificiality  and  sentimentality. 
But  the  average  teacher  is  incapable  of  philosophy, 
and  when  the  uncultured  mind  is  supplied  with  food 
it  cannot  digest,  that  mind  is  starved.  The  teacher 
who  glibly  uses  phrases  which  she  does  not  understand 
has  reached  a  state  of  mind  immeasurably  below  plain 
ignorance,  for  it  is  destructive  of  honest  thought  and 
common  sense.*  The  main  business  of  the  Froebelian 
is  to  forward  the  cause  to  which  Froebel  devoted  his 
life  "  to  bring  about  a  more  general  use  of  progressive 
development  in  the  culture  and  education  of  children. 
We  must  throw  overboard  everything  that  hampers 
action  and  set  before  ourselves,  as  in  his  day  Froebel 
tells  us  he  attempted  to  do,  the  definite  task  of  "found- 
ing anew  the  practical  methods  of  actual  teaching  so 
as  to  bring  them  into  satisfactory  relation  with  the 
needs  of  our  life  of  to-day." 

*  A  really  pathetic  story  has  been  told  me  of  an  earnest  teacher  in  far 
Australia,  whose  educational  opportunities  had  been  very  limited,  but 
whose  desire  for  knowledge  was  most  sincere.    She  had  been  listening  - 
without  comprehension  to  some  glib  user  of  phrases,  and  was  bewailing 
her  ignorance  to  an  enlightened  teacher  who  knew  there  had  been  little 

of  real  value,  and  who  said  with  a  laugh  "  Never  mind,  Miss ,  it  is 

only  a  case  of  *Mind  and  Matter  glide  swift  into  the  vortex  of 
immensity.'  "  And  the  listener  said,  "  Oh  please,  would  you  say  that 
slowly,  and  I'll  write  it  down." 


CHAPTER  X 

Some  Criticisms  Answered 

pROFESSOR  ADAMS  ends  the  first  chapter  of  his 
delightfully  witty  "  Herbartian  Psychology  "  with 
a  challenge  to  all  educational  thinkers  to  come 
out  of  their  caves  and  defend  their  idols.  Throughout 
the  book,  there  is  many  a  side-thrust  at  Froebel,  all 
of  a  more  or  less  disparaging  nature,  in  spite  of  the 
humorous  twinkle  which  has  a  fairly  permanent  abode 
in  the  eye  of  the  writer. 

Some  of  the  accusations  are  tolerably  sweeping, 
for  example,  that  Froebelianism  "  as  a  psychology  is 
simply  non-existent "  ;  that  Froebel  has  failed  to 
f  correlate  theory  and  practice  ;  that  although  in  "  The 
Education  of  Man  "  "  we  have  beautiful,  if  obscurely 
expressed,  truths  about  education,"  yet  the  Kinder- 
garten cannot  be  evolved  from  it,  in  fact  "  between 
the  two  there  is  a  great  gulf  fixed,  a  gulf  that  Froebel 
V       has  not  bridged." 

t^^.^'Bw.t  the  main  contention  is  that  Froebel  disap- 
I  proves  in  theory  of  any  interference  with  the  natural 
I  course  of  development.  The  Froebelian  teacher  is 
I  thus,  according  to  Professor  Adams,  reduced  to  the 
L— position  of  a  "  humble  under-gardener  "  who  merely 
watches  with  interest  and  admiration,  and  education 
becomes  "  a  general  paralysis." 

Mr.  Graham  Wallas,  whose  objections  to  Froebel, 


SOME  CRITICISMS  ANSWERED  191 

or  at  least  to  Froebelianism*,  as  he  understands  it, 
are  well  known,  bases  these  on  the  ground  that  because 
he  was  a  pre-Darwinian  evolutionist,  Froebel  Was 
bound  to  overrate  the  importance  of  the  innate  as  a 
factor  in  development,  and  to  undervalue  the  other 
factor  of  environment. 

Professor  O'Shea  disposes  of  Froebel  in  one  sentence 
and  in  much  the  same  way,  as  an  advocate  of  what 
he  calls  "  the  doctrine  of  Unfoldment,"  where  "  every- 
thing is  inner  and  self -relating,"  as  opposed  to  the 
conception  gained  from  Biology,  which  "  implies  that 
the  business  of  a  human  being  is  to  get  properly 
related  to  the  world — religious,  social  and  physical — 
of  which  he  is  an  integral  part."  ^^^^^ 

If    Froebel    really    believed    that    development    is^      l 
entirely  from  within,  as  stated  by  Professor  O'Shea,     / 

or  if  he  failed  to  realize  the  importance  of  the  sur^| ( 

roundings,  as  Mr.  Graham  Wallas  expresses  it,  he  T 
would  naturally  disapprove  of  any  interference,  as  \ 
Professor  Adams  says  he  does.  The  Froebelian,  being  \ 
thus  reduced  to  passive  watching,  the  mere  provision  ' 
of  a  Kindergarten  would  be  an  interference  with  the 
surroundings  and  a  contradiction  in  practice  of  -#rf 
theory  of  non-interference.  If  non-interference  is 
really  the  theory  propounded  in  "  The  Education  of 
Man,"  there  certainly  is  a  gulf  between  it  and  the 
Kindergarten,  a  gulf  it  would  be  difficult  to  bridge. 

But  Froebelians  are  not  prepared  to  admit  the 
premises  of  any  of  these  critics.  It  seems  to  many  of 
us  that  these  and  all  similar  criticisms  are  due  to  mis- 
understanding. This  is  sometimes  clearly  due  to 
careless  reading,  and  consequent  want  of  attention 
to  the  context,  but  even  where  this  is  not  the  case, 

♦  These  objections  were  embodied  in  a  paper  entitled  "  A  Criticism 
of  Froebelian  Pedagogy,"  which  Mr.  Graham  Wallas  read  at  a 
Conference  of  the  Froebel  Society  in  January  1901,  and  which  was 
published  in  the  Conference  Supplement  for  Child  Life,  July  1901. 


192   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

misunderstandings  occur.  Few,  of  late  years,  have  made 
any  real  study  of  Froebel's  writings  as  a  whole,  such 
as  is  necessary  to  get  at  his  real  meaning,  which  is  often 
obscured  by  prolixities  and  repetitions,  and  sometimes 
hidden  among  apparent  trivialities. 

Professor  O'Shea,  for  example,  does  not  seem  to  be 
aware  to  what  extent  Froebel,  like  himself,  derived 
his  educational  aim  and  principles  from  biology.  He 
has  probably  never  realized  the  deep  interest  taken 
by  Froebel  in  the  then  all-absorbing  question  of  natural 
development.  Clearly  he  has  no  idea  that  Froebel  has 
given  expression  to  a  conception  of  education,  prac- 
tically identical  with  that  given  above  which  he  him- 
self draws  from  biology,*  and  sets  in  contrast  with  the 
one  he  unjustly  attributes  to  Froebel. 

There  is  no  doubt  whatever  that  Froebel  laid  much 
stress  on  what  is  innate.  In  his  generation,  he  tells 
us  the  child  was  looked  upon  "  as  a  piece  of  wax,  or 
lump  of  clay,  which  man  can  mould  into  what  he 
pleases."  Because  Froebel  was  a  student  of  biology 
he  knew  better.  He  knew,  as  we  have  seen,  that 
human  beings  have  instincts,  innate  tendencies  or 
dispositions  differing  from  those  of  the  lower  animals 
chiefly  in  their  indefiniteness.  We  are  not  so  afraid 
of  the  word  "  innate "  nowadays,  when  both  innate 
ideas  and  innate  faculties  are  safely  buried,  and  that 
Froebel  had  no  dealings  with  these  has  been  amply  shown. 

But  that  this  stress  on  innate  tendencies  implies 
that  the  child  is  to  unfold  from  within,  the  educator 
standing  by  passivej",   or  that  Froebel  imagined  that 

*  See  p.  200. 

t  Few  critics  are  likely  to  go  so  far  as  Mr.  Winch,  who  gave  as  a 
Froebelian  conception  "  that  the  true  destiny  of  man  is  to  be  obtained 
by  gratifjdng  every  youthful  impulse."  But,  Mr.  Winch  is  perhaps 
not  to  be  taken  seriously,  for  in  the  same  paper  he  took  one  sentence 
out  of  a  passage  on  the  importance  of  continuity  extending  over  four  pages, 
and  says  of  it,  "This  jerky  discontinuity  (1)  has  not  the  slightest 
support  in  biological  science,  and  never  had."  (See  Memorandum 
written  for  Mr.  Graham  Wallas  in  "  Problems  of  Elducation.") 


SOME  CRITICISMS  ANSWERED  193 

the  developing  process  could  go  on  with  little  or  no 
reference  to  the  environment,  is  quite  another  matter. 

Few  of  Froebel's  critics  have  taken  the  trouble  to 
look  up  the  original  German  before  pronouncing  con- 
demnation, and  this  explains  part  of  the  injustice  that 
has  been  done  to  him.  The  passage  upon  which  much, 
perhaps  most,  of  the  adverse  criticism  is  based  is  the 
one  in  which  Froebel  applies  to  education  the  term 
"  leidend,"  translated  "  passive  "  in  both  the  English, 
or,  rather,  American  editions  of  "  The  Education  of 
Man."  The  translation  of  "  leidend  "  as  "  passive  " 
is  not  a  happy  one.  Moreover,  the*  translators  have 
endeavoured  to  help  the  reader  by  dividing  the  text 
into  numbered  sections,  a  proceeding  which  though 
often  helpful,  sometimes  tends  to  break  the  continuity 
of  Froebel's  thought.  This  effect  is  heightened  in 
Hailmann's  translation  by  the  interpolated  notes, 
however  valuable  as  some  of  these  are  in  themselves. 
This  passage,  however,  opens  with  "  therefore"  and 
those  who  take  exception  to  it  ought  to  have  con- 
sidered the  preceding  argument.  Fair  criticism  looks 
back  to  see  why  and  under  what  circumstances  educa- 
tion is  to  be  "  passive  or  following,"  as  opposed  to 
"  dictating  and  limiting." 

In  the  first  place,  absolutely  passive  education  is  a 
contradiction  in  terms.    Froebel  begins  by  stating  that: 

"  Education  consists  in  leading  man  as  a 
thinking,  intelligent  being,  growing  into  self- 
consciousness,  to  a  pure,  conscious  and  free  repre- 
sentation of  the  law  of  his  being,  and  in  teaching 
him  ways  and  means  thereto." 

He  defines  the  Theory  of  Education  as  "the  system 
of  directions  derived  from  the  knowledge  and  study  of 
that  law  to  guide  human  beings  in  the  apprehension 
of  their  life-work  "  ;    and  the  Practice  of  Education  as 


194   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

"  the  self -active  application  of  this  knowledge  in  the 
direct  development  and  cultivation  of  rational  beings 
towards  the  attainment  of  their  destiny." 

To  go  on  from  this  to  say,  on  the  next  page  but 
one,  that  the  educator  is  to  do  nothing,  to  stand  aside 
and  be  truly  passive,  would  be  absurd. 

That  our  word  "  passive  "  is  not  the  equivalent  of 
Froebel's  word  "  leidend,"  is  easily  proved,  for  in 
another  passage  where  Froebel  does  mean  "  passive  " 
he  couples  "  leidend "  with  "  inactive,"  and  puts 
passive  in  a  bracket  beside  it.  The  passage  runs : 
"  wo  das  Kind  ausserlich  als  unthatig,  leidend  (passiv) 
erscheint."  In  the  passage  under  discussion  "passiv" 
does  not  appear  at  all,  and  "  leidend  "  is  coupled,  not 
with  "  inactive,"  but  with  "  following,"  and  is  con- 
trasted with  "  dictating,  limiting  and  interfering."* 

A  few  lines  further  we  read  how  the  gardener  may 
even  destroy  the  vine  "if  he  fail  in  his  work  passively 
and  attentively  to  follow  the  nature  of  the  plant." 
He  cannot  surely  "  work  "  and  be  inactively  passive 
at  the  same  time. 

A  more  correct  translation  of  "  leidend "  here 
would  perhaps  be  "  tolerant  "  or  "  suffering  "  in  its 
old  sense  of  "  permitting,"  "  bearing  with,"  or  having 
patience  with. 

As  to  immediate  context,  Froebel  has  just  stated 
that  education  ought  "  to  lift  man  to  a  knowledge  of 
himself  and  mankind,  to  a  knowledge  of  God  and 
Nature,  and  to  the  pure  and  consecrated  life  con- 
ditioned thereby."  "  But,"  he  goes  on,  "  education 
must  be  founded  on  what  is  essential  or  innermost, 
and  though  the  real  nature  of  things  can  only  be  known 
by  outer  manifestations,  yet  it  behoves  the  educator 

*  Deshalb  sollen  Erziehung,  Unterricht  und  Lehre  urspriinglich 
und  in  ihren  ersten  Grundziigen  nothwendig  leidend,  nachgehend  (nur 
behiitend  schiitzend),  nicht  vorschreibend,  bestunmend,  eingreifend 


SOME  CRITICISMS  ANSWERED  195 

to  be  very  careful  how  he  judges,  for  the  child  that 
appears  good  outwardly,  is  often  not  really  good,  i.e. 
does  not  will  the  good  from  his  own  determination, 
or  from  love,  respect  for  or  recognition  of  it,"  while 
"  the  outwardly  rough  self-willed  child  often  has 
within  him  a  vigorous  struggle  to  do  what  seems  to 
him  right."  Judging  from  outer  manifestations  fur- 
nishes constant  occasion  for  false  judgments  concerning 
the  motives  of  children,  for  endless  misunderstanding 
between  parent  and  child,  and  for  unreasonable  de- 
mands made  upon  children. 

And  here  comes  the  force  of  the  conjunction  : 
"  Therefore,'*  says  Froebel,  "  education,  instruction 
and  training  in  their  fundamental  principles  must 
necessarily  be  tolerant,  following,  not  dictating,  not 
limiting  or  defining,  not  interfering." 

What  is  it,  then,  that  Froebel  is  telling  us  to  follow 
almost  passively,  interfering,  in  our  ignorance,  as  little 
as  possible  ?  Simply  the  natural  order  of  development, 
the  natural  instincts  of  childhood,  which  in  this  very 
passage  he  is  arguing  are  as  trustworthy  as  those  of 
other  young  animals.  Here,  as  everywhere,  man  can 
only  control  Nature  hy  following,  by  obeying  her 
laws. 

"  As  the  duckling  hastens  to  the  pond  and  the 
chicken  scratches  the  ground,  so  will  the  human 
being,  still  young,  still,  as  it  were,  in  the  process 
of  creation,  though  as  unconsciously  as  any  Nature 
product,  yet  definitely  and  surely  desire  what  is 
best  for  him.  We  give  plants  and  animals  time 
and  space  and  freedom  to  develop,  but  the  young 
human  being  is  to  man  a  piece  of  wax,  a  lump  of 
clay,  from  which  he  can  mould  what  he  will.  O 
man,  who  roamest  through  garden  and  field, 
through  meadow  and  grove,  why  dost  thou  close 
thy  mind  to  the  silent  teaching  of  Nature  ?  " — E.,p.  8. 


196   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

Surely  we  have  here  a  plea  to  "  suffer  (leiden) 
little  children,"  to  bear  with  the  little  one,  still,  as 
Froebel  describes  him,  "  still,  as  it  were,  in  the  process 
of  creation,"  nay,  more,  a  plea  for  the  actual  recog- 
nition and  fostering  of  these  instinctive  tendencies 
which  Professor  Dewey  calls  "  the  foundation-stones  of 
educational  method,"  rather  than  a  recommendation  to 
"  gratify  every  youthful  impulse,"  or  to  stand  aside  alto- 
gether.   For  the  context,  the  whole,  is  not  yet  complete. 

Froebel  goes  on  to  say  that  if  we  are  certain  of  any 
tendency  to  unhealthy  development  we  are  to  interfere 
with  full  severity  (so  tritt  geradezubestimmende, 
fordernde  Erziehungsweise  in  ihrer  ganzen  Strenge  ein). 

And  now  comes  a  sentence  apparently  quite  over- 
looked by  Mr.  Graham  Wallas,  who  blames  Froebel 
for  underestimating  the  environment.  In  the  mean- 
time, until  we  are  sure  that  our  interference  is  justifi- 
able, "nothing  is  left  for  us  to  do  but  to  bring  the 
child  into  relations  and  surroundings  in  all  respects 
adapted  to  him."* — E.,  p.  11. 

In  many  other  passages  Froebel  shows  plainly  that 
he  had  no  thought  of  the  "  gratifying  of  every  youthful 
impulse  "  in  the  sense  of  individual  caprice. 

In  his  plea  for  monetary  help  to  establish  Kinder- 
gartens and  training  establishments  connected  with 
them,  he  complains  that  in  existing  institutions  chil- 
dren are  either  "  repressed  and  their  energies  crippled, 
or  else  we  are  confronted  with  the  wild  and  uncon- 
trollable character  which  results  when  children  are  un- 
cared  for  and  are  left  altogether  to  their  own  impulses.'" 
—L.,  p.  159. 

"  Life  has  no  room  for  wilfulness  and  whims,"  he 
says  in  his  Mother  Songs  ;    "  Boyhood  is  the  age  of 

*  Mr.  Graham  Wallas  said :  "The  educational  task  for  us  is  not  to 
find  out  how  completely  we  can  stand  aside,  but  how  far  we  can  so 
influence  the  environment  of  the  child,  as  to  cause  those  tendencies  in 
it  which  we  think  best,  to  become  permanent." 


SOME  CRITICISMS  ANSWERED  197 

Discipline"   he   states  in   "The   Education   of   Man.'* 
But,  as  he  himself  sums  up  this  discussion  : 

I  "  All  true  education  is  double-sided,  prescribing 

and  following,  active  and  passive,  positive  yet 
giving  scope,  firm  and  yielding.  .  .  .  Between 
educator  and  pupil  should  rule  invisibly  a  third 
something  to  which  both  are  equally  subject. 
The  third  something  is  the  right,  the  best  .  .  . 
the  child,  the  pupil  has  a  very  keen  apprehension 
whether  what  father  or  teacher  requests  is  personal 
and  arbitrary  or  the  expression  of  general  law 
and  necessity." — E.,  p.  14. 

The  proof  of  whether  or  not  the  educator  has  suc- 
ceeded in  rightly  adjusting  the  claims  of  freedom  and 
authority,  Froebel  expresses  in  words  recalling  Kant's, 
"  When  the  '  Thou  Shalt '  of  the  Law  becomes  the 
'  I  will '  of  the  doer,  then  we  are  free." 

"  In  good  education,  in  genuine  instruction,  in 
true  teaching,  necessity  must  and  will  call  forth 
freedom,  law  will  call  forth  self-determination,  and 
outer  compulsion  inner  free-will. 

"  Where  necessity  produces  bondage,  where  law 
brings  fraud  and  crime,  and  outer  compulsion 
causes  slavery,  there  every  effect  of  education  is 
destroyed.  There  oppression  destroys  and  debases, 
severity  and  harshness  bring  obstinacy  and  deceit, 
and  the  burden  is  more  than  can  be  borne." — 
E.,  p.  14. 

To  emphasize  the  fact  that  Froebel  did  realize  the 
importance  of  environment,  and  to  anticipate  the 
criticism  that  this  shortened  rendering  is  an  interpre- 
tation in  the  light  of  modern  educational  theories,  of 
Froebel' s  somewhat  cumbrous  phrases,  we  can  turn  to 
a  passage  in  his  later  writing,  part  of  which  has  been 
quoted  elsewhere ; 


198   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

"  Through  the  child's  efforts  to  repel  that 
which  is  contrary  to  the  needs  of  his  hfe,  indig- 
nation and  discontent  are  awakened ;  and  on  the 
other  hand,  from  the  fact  that  his  normal  desires 
are  ungratified,  they  become  inordinate  and  mis- 
chievous. How  may  parents  avoid  these  evil 
results  ?  Most  satisfactorily  through  a  threefold 
yet  single  glance  at  life.  Let  them  look  into 
themselves,  and  their  own  course  of  development 
and  its  requirements,  let  them  recall  their  own 
earhest  years,  then  later  stages  of  development, 
and  look  deeply  into  their  present  life.  Next, 
let  them  look  equally  deeply  into  the  life  of  the 
child  and  what  he  ^must  require  for  his  present 
stage  of  development.  Having  scrutinized  what 
the  child  needs,  let  them  scrutinize  his  environment^ 
and  first  observe  what  it  offers  and  does  not  offer 
for  the  fulfilment  of  such  requirements.  Let  them 
utilize  all  offered  possibilities  of  meeting  normal 
needs ;  and  when  such  needs  cannot  be  met,  let 
them  recognize  this  fact,  and  show  the  child 
plainly  the  impossibility  of  their  fulfilment.  Fin- 
ally, let  them  clearly  recognize  whatever  in  the 
child's  environment  tends  to  awaken  antagonism 
and  discontent,  remove  it  if  it  be  removable,  and 
admit  its  defect  if  it  be  not  removable."* — P.,jp.  167. 

It  is,  of  course,  true  that  Froebel  was  pre-Dar- 
winian  in  time,  but  it  is  equally  true  that  he  was  post- 
Darwinian  in  many  of  his  beliefs. 

To  find  out  whether  or  not  his  educational  doc- 
trines are  really  based  on  false  or  exploded  theories  of 

*  Mr.  Graham  Wallas  said :  "  From  the  beginning  of  the  Darwinian 
reconstruction  of  the  moral  sciences,  it  was  absurd,  while  speaking  of 
'  environment,'  to  ignore  the  fact  that  the  deliberate  care  and  contri- 
vance of  the  parent  must  form  a  large  part  of  the  environment  of  the 
child."  The  passage  quoted  shows  that  Froebel  was  guilty  of  no  such 
absurdity. 


SOME  CRITICISMS  ANSWERED  199 

development,  as  the  Criticism  of  Mr.  Graham  Wallas 
implies,  we  must  gather  together  from  Froebel's  various 
writings,  his  most  important  references  to  the  subject. 

The  key-note  to  his  interest  in  it  lies  probably  in 
the  yearning  for  unity  and  union  in  all  relations,  which 
was  a  part  of  his  individuality.  This  may  have  dated 
back  to  the  time  when,  a  puzzled  little  mortal  of  eight 
or  nine  years  old,  he  was  most  unwisely  allowed  to 
hear  his  father  exhorting  and  rebuking  his  parishioners. 
It  seemed  to  the  boy  that  most  of  the  trouble  arose 
from  the  fact  that  human  beings,  and  human  beings 
alone,  so  far  as  he  knew,  were  divided  into  two  sexes, 
and  he  felt  that  he  would  have  arranged  matters 
differently.  Comfort  came  to  him  when  his  older 
brother,  by  showing  him  the  male  and  female  flower 
of  the  hazel,  gave  him  some  idea  of  a  great  law  of 
Nature.  Strange  comfort,  too,  it  seems,  for  a  boy  not 
yet  ten  years  old  ! 

The  late  Mr.  Ebenezer  Cooke  pointed  out  long  ago* 
that  Mr.  Graham  Wallas  had  not  only  overshot  the  mark 
in  saying  that "  Darwin  transferred  the  cause  of  develop- 
ment from  within  to  without,"  but  that  he  had  himself 
failed  to  draw  any  distinction  between  the  facts  of 
development,  as  seen  in  the  individual,  and  the  theory 
of  the  origin  or  development  of  species,  which  we 
associate  with  the  names  of  Darwin  and  Wallace. 
Mr.  Cooke  pointed  to  Froebel's  connection  with  Batch, 
the  founder  of  a  Natural  History  Society,  of  which 
Goethe  was  a  member,  as  showing  that  he  was  in 
direct  touch  with  those  who  were  working  out  the 
theory  of  development  of  the  individual. 

Froebel  himself  refers  to  this  Natural  History 
Society  in  his  Autobiography,  saying  that  "  students," 
of  whom  he  was  one,  "  who  had  shown  living  interest 

*  "  Is  Development  from  Within  ?  "  "  Child  Life,"  October,  1904, 
and  January,  1905. 


200   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

and  done  active  work  in  Natural  Science,"  were  invited 
to  become  members,  and  that  this  awoke  within  him 
"  a  yearning  towards  higher  scientific  knowledge."  At 
this  time  Froebel  was  but  a  youth  of  seventeen,  with 
no  idea  that  education  was  to  be  his  life  work.  Three 
years  later,  he  meets  a  private  tutor,  "  a  young  man 
quite  out  of  the  common,  with  actively  inquiring 
mind,"  who  was  "  especially  fond  of  making  com- 
prehensive schemes  of  education."  The  year  after  this 
we  find  him  reading  what  he  can  of  anthropology  and 
history,  and  saying  of  his  reading  :  "It  taught  me  of 
man  in  his  broad  historical  relations  and  set  before 
me  the  general  life  of  my  kind  as  one  great  whole." 

One  year  more,  and  while  he  is  looking  for  a  situa- 
tion with  an  architect — in  spite  of  uneasy  communing 
with  himself  as  to  how  architecture  was  to  be  used 
"  for  the  culture  and  ennoblement  of  mankind " — 
Griiner  claps  him  on  the  shoulder  with  "  Give  up 
architecture,  it  is  not  your  vocation  at  all !  Become 
a  teacher." 

It  is  perhaps  because  Froebel  passed  thus  from 
interest  in  biology  to  interest  in  education  that  at 
this  time  he  gives  to  his  own  question,  What  is  the 
purpose  of  education  ? — almost  the  identical  answer 
that  Professor  O'Shea  puts  into  the  mouth  of  his  bio- 
logist*, and  which  he  sets  in  opposition  to  Froebel' s 
supposed  opinions  : 

"  In  answering  the  question.  What  is  the  pur- 
pose of  education  ?  I  relied  at  that  time  on  the 
following  observations  :  Man  lives  in  a  world  of 
objects,  which  influence  him  and  which  he  desires 
to  influence  ;  therefore  he  ought  to  know  these 
objects  in  their  nature,  in  their  conditions  and 
in  their  relations  with  each  other  and  with  man- 
kind.   ...   I    sought,    to    the    extent    of    such 

*  See  p.  192. 


SOME  CRITICISMS  ANSWERED  201 

powers  as  I  consciously  possessed  at  that  time, 
to  make  clear  to  myself  the  meaning  of  all  things 
through  man,  his  relations  with  himself,  and  with 
the  external  world  ...  it  seemed  to  me  that 
everything  which  should  or  could  be  required  for 
human  education  must  be  necessarily  conditioned 
and  given,  by  virtue  of  the  very  nature  of  the 
necessary  course  of  his  development,  in  man's 
own  being  and  in  the  relations  amidst  which  he 
is  set.  A  man,  it  seemed  to  me,  would  be  well 
educated  when  he  had  been  trained  to  care  for 
these  relationships  and  to  acknowledge  them,  to 
master  them  and  to  survey  them." — A.,  p.  69. 

In  the  very  beginning,  then,  of  his  educational 
career,  Froebel  emphasized  rather  than  overlooked 
"  the  relationships  amidst  which  man  is  set,"  but  he 
was  to  learn  more  yet  about  development. 

Six  years  later  he  is  back  at  a  university,  and 
"  just  at  this  time,"  he  says,  "  those  great  discoveries 
of  the  French  and  English  philosophers  became  gener- 
ally known  through  which  the  great  manifold  external 
world  was  seen  to  form  a  comprehensive  outer  world." 

The  English  writer  may  have  been  Erasmus  Darwin. 
The  French  writer  was  no  doubt  Lamarck,  to  whom 
belongs  "  the  immortal  glory  of  having  for  the  first 
time  worked  out  the  theory  of  Descent  as  an  inde- 
pendent scientific  theory  of  the  first  order  and  as  the 
philosophical  foundation  of  the  whole  science  of 
Biology." 

From  some  such  source,  at  any  rate,  Froebel  must 
have  gained  "  the  key-note  of  development,"  viz.,  that 
it  is  always  from  the  undifferentiated  to  the  differen- 
tiated. We  have  already  seen  that  he  applied  this  to 
mental  development  and  so  gained  his  modem  con- 
ception of  the  earliest  infant  consciousness,  "  an 
undifferentiated  unorganized  unity." 


202      FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

In  **  The  Education  of  Man  "  he  speaks  of 

"  the  all-pervading  law  of  Nature  according  to 
which  the  general  gives  rise  to  the  particular," — 
E.p.  167. 

and  in  the  Mother  Songs  he  says  : 

"  Whether  we  are  looking  at  a  seed  or  an  egg, 
whether  we  are  watching  feeling  or  thought,  what 
is  definite  proceeds  everywhere  from  what  is 
indefinite."— ilf.,  p.  121. 

Or,  again  : 

"  In  the  child  as  in  the  grain  of  seed,  there 
begins  a  development  proceeding  towards  com- 
plexity."—P.,  p.  172. 

Such  quotations  fully  exonerate  Froebel  from  belief 
in  any  "  pre-formation  "  theory,  whether  physical  or 
mental,  as  indeed  Mr.  Cooke  made  abundantly  plain. 

It  is  in  one  of  his  later  papers*  that  Froebel  general- 
izes and  states  very  plainly  how  everything  is  developed 
under  the  influence  of  its  environment. 

"  Taking  Nature  as  our  guide,  let  us  endeavour 
to  find  the  essential  nature  of  material  objects 
and  the  conditions  under  which  this  develops,  for 
the  process  of  development  shows  the  essence  of 
the  developing  object. 

"  Firstly,  each  thing  and  each  object  mani- 
festing existence  and  life,  develops  itself  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  highest  and  simplest,  the  general 
laws  of  life.  Thus  everything  manifests  these  laws 
and  their  primeval  cause. 

"  Secondly,  each  thing  and  each  object  in 
Nature  develops  itself  according  to  its  own  indi- 
viduality and  the  laws  of  its  being. 

♦  "  Second  Review  of  Plays :  A  Fragment,"  but  part  of  this  has 
been  omitted  in  the  English  translation. 


SOME  CRITICISMS  ANSWERED  203 

"  Thirdly^  everything  in  Nature  develops  itself 
under  the  collective  influence  of  all  things.  If  any 
object  seems  to  be  withdrawn  from  this  collective 
influence,  such  withdrawal  is  only  mediate.  .  .  . 

"  In  Nature,  and  in  everything,  all  things 
develop  as  members  of  the  world  -  whole,  the 
universal  life,  as  members  of  a  whole,  each  per- 
fect in  its  kind,  because  each,  while  standing  in  the 
centre  of  the  collective  influence  streaming  upwards 
and  inwards — nay,  in  a  certain  sense,  as  the  receiver, 
yielding  itself  to  this  influence — yet  also  acts  (as 
assimilative  and  formative)  and  develops  itself, 
faithful  to  the  indwelling  laws  of  life  universal 
and  particular.  We  must  see  clearly  the  con- 
ditions of  perfect  development  in  Nature,  and 
then  employ  them  in  human  life.  Thus  only  can 
we  help  man  to  attain,  upon  the  plane  of  human 
development — which  means  spiritual  development 
— a  degree  of  perfection  corresponding  to  that 
which  the  forms  and  types  of  Nature  show  upon 
the  plane  of  physical  development." — P.,  p.  196. 

When  child  development  is  in  question,  far  from 
minimising,  as  he  is  supposed  to  do,  the  importance  of 
environment,  parents  and  teachers  are  told : 

"  We  must  hold  fast  for  consideration  in  Ufe 
this  fact,  that  in  the  spontaneous  occupation  and 
playing  of  the  child,  not  the  germ  only,  but  the 
growing  point  of  his  life  also,  is  formed  in  union 
with  his  surroundings,  and  under  their  silent  un- 
remarked influence  (im  Vereine  mit  der  Umgebung 
imd  unter  deren  stillen  unbemerkten  Einwirkung)." 
—P.,  p.  108. 

Or,  again  : 

"  As  the  new-born  child,  like  a  ripe  grain  of 
seed  dropped  from  the  mother  plant  has  life  in 


204   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

itself,  and  as  it  spontaneously  develops  life  in 
progressive  connection  with  the  common  life  whole ; 
so  activity  and  action  are  the  first  phenomena  of 
his  awakening  life.  This  activity  bears  the  impress 
of  what  is  innermost,  it  is  an  inner  activity  whose 
purpose  is  manifestation  of  the  inner  through  the 
outer,  and,  as  leading  up  to  this,  devoted  to  con- 
sideration of  and  working  with  the  outer  to  pene- 
trating the  outer  and  overcoming  hindrances  as 
such."— P.,  p.  23. 

This  account  surely  makes  plain,  that  whatever 
Froebel  may  have  believed  with  regard  to  the  origin 
of  species,  he  in  no  way  believed  that  development  in 
general  was  a  one-sided  process,  in  which  the  environ- 
ment went  for  nothing. 

In  his  "  Criticism,"  Mr.  Graham  Wallas  remarked  : 
"  Whoever  divorced  his  educational  system  from  his 
philosophy,  would  have  seemed  to  Froebel  to  have 
taken  all  force  and  meaning  out  of  his  work."  This 
is  most  true,  and  it  approaches  absurdity  to  attribute 
so  limited  a  view  to  a  man  imbued  as  Froebel  was  with 
the  philosophical  doctrine  of  the  reconciliation  of  the 
opposites.*  That  all  development  was  the  result  of  a 
harmony  between  opposites  was  one  of  his  cardinal 
doctrines. 

"  We  are  living  in  an  age,"  he  writes,  "  when  we 
are  consciously  under  a  law  of  development  acting  by 
the  reconciliation  of  opposites." 

Mr.  Hailmann  gives  a  long  footnote  where  Froebel 
is  quoted  as  comparing  his  idea  of  the  law  of  connec- 
tion or  unification  with  the  ideas  of  Fichte  and  Hegel, 
and  saying  : 

*  Those  who  desire  a  full  and  scholarly  account  of  Froebel's 
philosophy  are  referred  to  that  given  by  Professor  Angus  MacVannel, 
PhX).,  "Teachers'  College  Record,"  Vol.  IV,  No.  5.  The  Mac- 
millan  Co.,  New  York. 


SOME  CRITICISMS  ANSWERED  205 

"It  is  both  of  these,  and  yet  has  nothing  in 
common  with  either  of  them  ;  it  is  the  law  which 
the  contemplation  of  Nature  has  taught  me.  .  .  . 
And  where  do  we  find  absolute  contrasts  that  have 
not  somewhere  and  somehow  a  connection  ?  In 
action  and  reaction  the  contrasts  that  we  see 
everywhere  give  rise  to  the  motions  in  the  universe 
as  they  do  in  the  smallest  organism.  This  implies 
for  all  development  a  struggle  which  however 
sooner  or  later  will  find  its  adjustment ;  and  this 
adjustment  is  the  connection  of  contrasts." — £., 
p.  42. 

What  Froebel  knew  of  Hegel's  philosophy  was 
probably  gained  from  discussions  among  his  friends, 
for  in  the  hearing  of  Madame  von  Marenholz,  he  said, 
"I  do  not  know  how  Hegel  formulates  and  applies 
this  law,  for  I  have  had  no  time  for  the  study  of  his 
system,"  and  he  went  on  to  say  of  "  the  philosophical 
systems  of  others  "  that  "  most  of  them  belong  to  a 
theory  of  the  world  that  is  passing  away,  whose  one- 
si  dedness  becomes  more  apparent  every  day " 
(Reminiscences,  225).  Ebers,  too,  speaks  of  Froebel's 
ideas  as  opposed  to  those  of  Hegel. 

Even  Mr.  Graham  Wallas  allows  that  Froebel's 
casual  references  to  the  development  of  species  are 
"  surprisingly  modern."  No  orthodox  views  as  to  the 
exact  date  of  the  creation  of  the  world  keep  him  from 
accepting  the  newly  discovered  testimony  of  the  rocks 
as  to  "  the  remains  of  perished  ages."  Ardent  as  his 
religious  convictions  were,  they  had  a  philosophic 
width  unusual  indeed  in  his  day.  The  Garden  of 
Eden  is  to  him  a  parable,  repeated  "  in  the  experience 
of  every  child  from  the  time  of  his  appearance  on 
earth  to  the  time  when  he  consciously  (by  the  help  of 
names)  beholds  himself  in  beautiful  Nature  spread  out 
before  him."     In  each  child  he  sees  "  repeated  at  a 


206   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

later  period,  the  deed  which  marks  the  beginning  of 
moral  and  human  emancipation,  of  the  dawn  of  reason." 
He  refers  calmly  to 

"  the  fall,  or,  since  the  result  is  the  same,  the 
ascent  of  the  mind  of  man,  from  simple,  uniform, 
emotional  development,  into  the  development  of 
externally  analytic  and  critical  reason." — E.,  p.  194. 

Not  Stanley  Hall  himself  insists  more  that  the 
development  of  the  individual  shall  follow  the  develop- 
ment of  the  race,  and  this  in  1826,  two  years  before 
Baer,  and  four  years  before  Com£e,  to  whom  Herbert 
Spencer  attributed  the  doctrine.  "  Humanity,"  he  says, 
lives  only  in  its  continuous  development." 

"  Each  successive  generation  and  each  succes- 
sive individual  human  being,  inasmuch  as  he 
would  understand  the  past  and  present,  must  pass 
through  all  preceding  phases  of  human  develop- 
ment and  culture,  and  this  should  not  be  done  in 
the  way  of  dead  imitation  or  mere  copying,  but 
in  the  way  of  living  spontaneous  self-activity." — 
E.,  p.  18. 

There  is  certainly  no  ground  for  assuming  that 
Froebel  held  any  such  pre-Darwinian  views  as  a  special 
creation  of  each  species,  for  there  is  no  point  on  which 
he  insists  more  emphatically  than  that  in  Nature 
development  is  continuously  progressive. 

"  In  God's  world,  just  because  it  is  Good's 
world,  by  Him  created,  one  thing  constant  is 
expressed  to  which  we  give  the  name  of  unbroken 
progression  of  development  in  all  and  through 
all."  *—M.,  p.  154. 
"  God  neither  ingrafts  nor  inoculates.  He  develops 

*  In  Gottes  Welt,  eben  weil  es  die  Welt  Gottes,  durch  Gott 
Gewordenes  ist,  spricht  sich  ein  Stetiges,  das  heisst'fungetrennt 
Fortgehendes  der  Entwickelung  in  Allem  und  durch  AUes  aus. 


SOME  CRITICISMS  ANSWERED  207 

the  most  trivial  and  imperfect  things  in  continu- 
ously ascending  series  and  in  accordance  with 
eternal  self-grounded  and  self-developing  laws." — 
E.,  p.  328. 

Mr.  Winch  makes  merry  over  Froebel's  sentence  : 

"  As  Man  and  Nature  have  one  origin,  they 
must  be  subject  to  the  same  laws," 

and  remarks  that  "  this  conception  is  almost  com- 
pletely given  up.  .  .  .  Our  view  now  rather  is  one 
in  which  God  and  Nature  are  at  strife,  in  which  the 
ethical  interest  overcomes  Nature.  ..." 

But  Froebel  is  far  ahead  of  this.  The  great  law  to 
him  is  the  Law  of  Development  to  which  Man  and 
Nature,  which  includes  Man,  are  subject.  The  ethical 
interest  is  not,  as  Mr.  Winch  intimates,  something 
transcending  Nature,  but  is  itself  evolved.  Morality, 
Froebel  distinctly  tells  us,  is  "rooted"  in  Instinct,  and 
"  human  development  means  spiritual  development." 

Professor  O'Shea  says  of  the  doctrine  of  Unfold- 
ment  which  he  attributes  to  Froebel  that  it  "  regards 
man  on  his  spiritual  side  as  an  entity  set  apart  from 
everything  in  the  universe."* 

Froebel,  however,  writes  : 

"  Difficult,  very  difficult,  would  it  be  to  define 
where  the  purely  physical  ends  and  the  purely 
intellectual  begins.  It  is  precisely  on  account  of 
this  close  welding  or  flowing  into  one  another  of 
the  Physical  and  Psychical,  the  bodily  and  mental, 
the  material  and  spiritual,  the  vital  (des  Vitalen) 
and  intellectual,  instinct  and  morality ;  it  is 
because  of  this  rooting  of  the  higher  in  the  lower 
that  the  training  and  ennobling  of  the  senses, 
such  as  smell  and  taste,  are  so  important." — M.y 
p.  183. 

*  See  Appendix,  p.  216. 


208      FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

"  Training  and  ennobling,"  these  words  bring  us 
back  to  the  educational  doctrines  Froebel  based  upon 
what  he  knew  of  development,  physical  and  mental, 
from  whatever  source  he  may  have  gained  his  infor- 
mation. 

"  From  the  beginning  of  the  Darwinian  recon- 
struction of  the  moral  sciences,"  says  Mr.  Graham 
Wallas,  "  it  was  absurd,  while  speaking  of  '  environ- 
ment,' to  ignore  the  fact  that  the  deliberate  care  and 
contrivance  of  the  parent  must  form  a  large  part  of 
the  environment  of  the  child."     Undoubtedly. 

But  it  was  because  Froebel  exalted  "  the  deliberate 
care  and  contrivance  of  the  parent "  that  he  wrote 
"  The  Education  of  Man,"  to  tell  his  generation  how 
best  to  care  and  contrive.  It  was  because  he  realized 
that  this  deliberate  care  and  contrivance  must  begin 
from  the  very  first  that  he  wrote  his  Mother  Songs. 
He  tells  the  mother  here  that  "  if  she  is  wise,  in  all 
she  does  a  noble  meaning  lies  "  ;  that  she  must  "  do 
nothing  aimlessly  or  she'll  create  a  child  she  cannot 
educate."  He  tells  her  that  it  is  "  by  watching  what 
makes  the  child's  eyes  bright,  that  she  will  know  how 
best  to  give  delight,"  and  that  she  must  "  seek  to 
strengthen  power  and  mind  in  all  things." 

In  very  truth  the  Kindergarten  itself,  with  all  its 
imperfections,  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  an  attempt 
to  supply  that  very  environment  which  its  founder  is 
supposed  to  undervalue — an  attempt  to  foster,  by 
providing  suitable  conditions,  those  innate  tendencies 
or  natural  activities,  to  which  Froebel  attached  infinite 
importance. 

This  is  why  the  discovery  of  the  name  Kinder- 
garten gave  Froebel  the  pleasure  expressed  in  his  cry, 
"  Eureka,  I  have  it  !  Kindergarten  shall  be  its  name." 
The  original  designation  contained  the  actual  words 
"  through    the    culture    of    the    instinct    for    activity, 


SOME  CRITICISMS  ANSWERED  209 

inquiry  and  creation,  inherent  in  man,"  but  this 
original  title  spreads  over  several  lines  of  print.  "Gar- 
den "  to  Froebel  expresses  just  what  he  wanted,  "  As 
in  a  garden  under  God's  favour,  and  hy  the  care  of  a 
skilled,  intelligent  gardener,  growing  plants  are  culti- 
vated in  accordance  with  Nature's  laws,  so  here,  in 
our  child-garden,  shall  the  noblest  of  all  growing 
things,  men  (that  is,  children,  the  germs  and  shoots 
of  humanity)  be  cultivated  in  accordance  with  the 
laws  of  their  own  being,  of  God  and  of  Nature." — L., 
p.  161. 

This  is  why  he  urges  on  his  pupil,  Ida  Seele,  to 
retain  the  name  in  spite  of  the  prejudices  it  aroused. 
It  is  to  her  that  he  writes  : 

"  Is  there  really  such  importance  underlying 
the  mere  name  of  a  system  ? — some  one  might 
ask.  Yes,  there  is  :  ...  It  is  true  that  any  one 
carefully  watching  your  teaching  would  observe 
a  new  spirit  .  .  .  you  would  strike  him  as  per- 
sonally capable,  nay,  as  extremely  capable,  but 
you  would  fail  to  strike  him  as  priestess  of  the  idea, 
and  of  the  struggle  towards  the  realization  of  the 
idea — education  by  development — ^the  destined 
means  of  raising  the  whole  human  race.  For, 
after  all,  what  do  we  mean  by  '  Kindergarten '  ? 
.  .  .  No  man  can  acquire  fresh  knowledge  beyond 
the  measure  which  his  own  mental  strength  and 
stage  of  development  fits  him  to  receive.  But 
little  children  have  no  development  at  all.  .  .  . 
Infant  schools  are  nothing  but  a  contradiction  of 
child  nature.  Little  children  ought  not  to  be 
schooled  and  taught,  they  merely  need  to  be 
developed.  It  is  the  pressing  need  of  our  age, 
and  only  the  idea  of  a  garden  can  serve  to  show 
us  symbolically  the  proper  treatment  of  children. 
This  idea  lies  in  the  very  name  of  a  Kindergarten. 


210   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

.  .  .  How  much  better  had  you  been  able  to  call 
your  work  by  its  proper  name,  and  to  make 
evident  by  that  expression,  the  real  nature  of  the 
new  spirit  you  have  introduced." — L.,  p.  290. 

There  is  no  gulf  between  the  Kindergarten,  and 
"  The  Education  of  Man,"  with  its  appeal  to  educators 
to  follow  instead  of  interfering  with  Nature's  methods, 
to  foster  instead  of  repressing  the  "  instincts  of 
activity  and  of  construction,"  to  foster  play,  which 
though  "  merely  natural  life,"  yet  holds  "  the  seed 
leaves  of  all  later  life." 

Froebel's  gardener  is  "  skilled  and  intelligent,"  and 
a  skilled  gardener  is  supposed  to  have  scientific  know- 
ledge of  his  plants,  of  the  conditions  of  soil,  exposure, 
etc.,  best  suited  to  them.  Professor  Adams  says  that 
"  to  call  a  child  a  plant  does  not  advance  matters 
much,  and  it  certainly  does  not  account  for  the  use  of 
the  cubes,  spheres  and  such  like."  This,  however,  it 
does  most  certainly  if  these  cubes  and  spheres  are  the 
right  food  material  for  the  child's  mind,  as  Froebel  at 
any  rate  believed. 

All  the  employments  of  the  Kindergarten,  all  the 
varied  materials,  the  sand  and  clay,  the  pencil  and 
paint  brush,  the  building  blocks,  cardboard,  sawdust, 
moss,  nut-shells,  etc.,  for  constructive  or  "  represen- 
tative "  play  are  definitely  mentioned  and  definitely 
commended  in  "  The  Education  of  Man."  They  are 
commended  because  they  are  the  employments  and 
the  material  which  children  everywhere  find  for  them- 
selves ;  because  Froebel  had  sufficient  knowledge  of 
biology  to  know  that  instinctive  action  must  somehow 
benefit  the  individual  and  the  race ;  and  also  because 
he  had  psychological  insight  enough  to  see  that  by  such 
activities  children  gain  not  merely  skill,  but  clear  ideas 
and  "  firmness  of  will." 

Professor   Adams   writes :     "  Not   Philosophy,    but 


SOME  CRITICISMS  ANSWERED  211 

common  sense,  experience  and  loving  observation,  have 
led  Froebel  and  his  followers  to  adopt  certain  apparatus 
and  certain  methods,  which  are  excellent  in  them- 
selves, and  which  in  capable  hands  produce  admirable 
results.  For  this  he  deserves  all  the  honour  that  has 
been  heaped  upon  him — but  he  has  not  explained  John." 

True  enough,  Froebel  has  not  explained,  at  least, 
he  has  not  entirely  explained  that  charming  John,  the 
Professor's  own  creation  and  type  of  all  our  children. 
Who  has  ?  Still,  by  his  efforts  as  a  pioneer  in  genetic 
psychology — the  result  of  his  belief  that  "  only  by  the 
study  of  development  in  ourselves  and  others,  can  we 
learn  to  understand  the  child " — and  by  the  two 
sketches  so  full  of  insight  into  child-life  and  into  boy 
hfe,  which  he  has  given  us  in  "  The  Education  of 
Man,"  surely  Froebel  has  done  at  least  his  share  even 
in  explaining  John. 

No  doubt  he  learnt  much  from  "  loving  obser- 
vation." Nor  does  he  undervalue  it,  but,  in  his  case, 
the  observation  was  induced  by  the  Philosophy,  as  well 
as  by  the  love.  For,  as  he  tells  us,  "  it  is  a  necessary 
part  of  me  to  be  irresistibly  driven  to  search  out  the 
ultimate  cause  of  every  fact  in  life,  to  discover  its 
roots."  He  learned  much  from  watching  both  mothers 
and  children,  but  he  says  : 

"  What  natural  mother  wit  and  human 
common  sense  left  to  themselves,  have  been 
doing  by  chance  and  piece-meal,  ought  now  to  be 
brought  forward  by  a  thoughtful  mind,  its  foun- 
dation, connections  and  deeper  meaning  recog- 
nized, that  it  may  be  improved  upon  by  clever 
and  kindly  thought." — M.,  p.  147. 

An  education  which  "  follows "  needs  shown  by 
the  child,  which  "  follows  "  the  laws  of  development, 
physical  and  mental,  as  far  as  these  can  be  discovered 


212   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

from  history,  from  introspection,  and  from  observation 
of  children  in  general  and  of  "  each  individual  child," 
that  is  the  "  patiently  following "  education  which 
Froebel  puts  before  us  as  an  ideal.     "  For,"  he  says  : 

"  By  the  full  application  of  the  latter  method 
of  education,  the  prescribing  and  interfering,  we 
should  wholly  lose  the  sure,  steady  and  progressive 
development  of  mankind,  which  is  the  ultimate 
aim  and  object  of  all  education." — E.,  p.  10. 

Note. — The  foregoing  chapter  was  written  some  years  ago,  but 
in  1912  there  appeared  a  fresh  criticism  of  Froebel  and  his  work  i^«iJ\ 
many  ways  more  adequate  than  certain  others.  It  appeared  as  anil 
Introduction  to  a  new  translation  of  "The  Education  of  Man  "  and  of  [j 
some  of  Froebel's  lesser  writings,  by  Dr.  Fletcher  and  Professpr  j 
Welton.  In  this  introduction,  important  points  are  granted,  for 
example,  that  Froebel  had  "grasped  the  vital  principle  that  all  true 
development,  and  consequently  all  true  education,  is  a  self-directed 
process — that  purpose  is  the  key-note  of  human  culture  and  advance. 
It  was  the  emphasis  which  he  laid  upon  this  which  makes  Froebel 
one  of  the  princes  of  education  and  gives  him  an  enduring  place  in 
the  history  of  thought."  Or  again,  that  Froebel's  teaching  is  "not 
the  negation  of  all  human  constraint,"  but  that  he  sees  clearly  that 
"constraint  is  necessary  to  train  the  will  to  resist  impulse  and  follow 
purpose"  ;  that  with  Froebel  "Discipline  must  direct  instinctive 
impulse,  not  simply  oppose  and  thwart  it.  Unfortunately,  however, 
the  writers  of  the  book  do  not  seem  to  have  grasped  the  idea  of  the 
Kindergarten  as  an  Institution  which  had  this  very  end  in  view,  and 
the  second  part  of  the  book  which  is  called  "The  Kindergarten,"  never 
mentions  its  essential  features.  So  we  have  the  familiar  statement 
that  between  the  Kindergarten  and  "The  Education  of  Man  "  a  gulf  is 
fixed,  a  statement  which  has  been  already  discussed.  And  we  are 
also  told  that  Froebel  attracts  us  "by  his  very  vagueness."  But 
Keilhau  and  Helba  and  the  real  Kindergarten  are  none  of  them 
vague.  That  Froebel  attributed  too  much  importance  to  his  Gifts 
and  occupations  most  of  us  will  readily  allow,  but  that  the  forms 
of  expression  set  forth  in  the  Helba  plan  are  to  be  regarded  as  merely 
additions  to  the  Gifts  is  impossible  seeing  that  the  plan  for  Helba  is 
dated  1829.  Besides,  all  such  work  had  already  been  very  much  in 
evidence  at  Keilhau  (See  p.  v.  Preface),  and  the  Gifts  and  Occupa- 
tions were  an  attempt  to  provide  in  a  similar  manner  for  children 
very  much  younger,  and  as  materials  are  only  such  as  children  find  for 
themselves.  We  claim  that  Froebel  himself  is  the  best  interpreter 
of  his  own  invention,  the  Kindergarten,  and  we  are  content  to  abide 
by  his  own  definition  of  it :  An  Institution  for  the  cultivation  of  the 
life  of  mankind  through  fostering  the  impulse  to  activity,  investigation 
and  construction  in  the  child;  an  institution  for  the  self-instruction,  for 
self- education  of  mankind  through  play,  that  is  creative  self-activity  and 
spontaneous  self -instruction.'''' 


APPENDIX  I 

On  the  Meaning  of  the  Word  "  Activity  " 

PROFESSOR  STOUT   is   particularly  definite   in   his 

use  of  the  word  "  activity,"  and  as  he  agrees 
with  Mr.  Bradley,  from  whom  he  quotes  "  that  the 
current  use  of  the  word  activity  in  the  literature  of 
philosophy  is  a  scandal,"  it  may  be  well  to  inquire 
here  whether  Froebel  used  the  word  loosely  or  with 
some  degree  of  definiteness. 

Professor  Stout  considers  the  word  "  activity  '* 
specially  appropriate  to  cases  "  in  which  the  return 
of  a  causal  process  upon  itself  is  especially  prominent 
or  important."  He  quotes  from  Mr.  Bradley  again 
that  "  Activity  seems  to  be  self -caused  change.  A 
transition  that  begins  with,  and  comes  out  of  the  thing 
itself  is  the  process  where  we  feel  that  it  is  active." 
"  Thus,"  Mr.  Stout  comments,  "  the  life  and  growth 
of  organisms  are  specially  appropriate  examples  of 
activity ;  for  such  processes  are  in  a  large  measure 
immanent  or  self -determining." 

The  first  point  that  suggests  itself  is  that  in  the 
majority  of  cases,  Froebel  may  perhaps  be  said  to  have 
avoided  the  difficulty  by  his  constant  reference  not 
only  to  activity  but  to  "  self -activity,"  a  word  asso- 
ciated with  the  name  of  Froebel  closely  as  his  very 
shadow. 

In  the  second  place,  we  do  find  Froebel  very 
markedly  referring  to  the  self-determining  activity  of 
organisms,  in  a  passage  where  he  is  trying  to  show 


214   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

that  all  instruction  should  start  from  the  child's  own 
desire  and  power  of  will.  He  says  that  the  mother — 
grounding  her  instruction  in  her  child's  desire  to  write 
to  the  absent  father — acts  like  the  sun,  "  whose 
warmth  awakens  in  every  grain  of  seed,  life,  impulse, 
power,  self-activity,  self-determination "  (die  Triebe, 
die  Kraft,  die  Selbstthatigkeit  und  Selbstbestimmung).* 

It  is  Froebel's  peculiarity  that  he  brings  his  philo- 
sophical conceptions  into  the  veriest  details,  and  so 
even  in  speaking  of  how  the  mother  may  make  a  ball 
represent  a  springing  kitten,  etc.,  and  saying  that  to 
the  child  the  ball  is  "  the  uniting  object,"  yet,  he  says, 
considering  the  plays  as  proceeding  from  the  child 
(vom  Kinde  aus),  "  all  activity,  though  mediated 
(vermittelt)  by  the  ball,  proceeds  definitely  from  the 
child,  and  though  going  through  the  ball,  refers  back 
again  to  the  child,  who  is  himself  a  unit." 

There  is  a  particular  passage  which  suggests  that 
there  existed  a  special  definite  idea  in  Froebel's  mind 
in  regard  to  the  word  "  activity,"  and  it  is  one  which 
presents  a  difficulty  to  an  ordinary  and  unphilo- 
sophical  mind,  though  a  possible  light  is  thrown  upon 
it  by  Mr.  Bradley's  definition.  In  this  passage 
activity  (Thatigkeit)  is  very  distinctly  given  as  some- 
thing higher  than  impulse  (Triebe). 

The  working  of  the  primeval  Cause,  "  the  uniting," 
is  called,  Froebel  says,  "  according  to  the  different 
stages  in  development.  Force,  Impulse,  Life,  Life- 
impulse,  Activity "  (Wirken,  Trieb,  Leben,  Leben- 
strieb,  Thatigkeit). 

This  placing  of  activity  so  high  in  the  scale  is  at 
least  no  accident,  and  conscious  self-determination  is 
constantly  attributed  to  man  as  "  the  most  perfect 
earthly  being,"  and  to  man  alone. 

*  "Das  Pedagogik  des  Kindergartens,"  p.  329. 


THE  MEANING  OF  THE  WORD  ''ACTIVITY"  215 

Mr.  Stout  proceeds  to  examine  the  conception  of 
self-determining  process,  with  special  reference  to 
changes  within  the  sphere  of  an  individual  conscious- 
ness, taking  as  the  most  convenient  point  of  departure, 
such  illustrative  analogies  as  come  from  the  physical 
world,  and  beginning  with  the  simplest  form  of  self- 
determination,  the  law  of  inertia.* 

"  Conscious  life,"  he  says,  "  is  always  in  some 
degree  self-sustaining,  this  indeed  is  an  indispensable 
part  of  the  connotation  of  all  such  words  as  activity, 
endeavour,  conation,  effort,  striving,  will,  attention. 
All  such  terms  imply  that  the  process  to  which  they 
refer,  tends  by  its  intrinsic  nature  in  a  certain  direction, 
or  toward  a  certain  end." 

Now  the  word  "  endeavour  "  or  "  effort  "  (Streben) 
is  a  word  Froebel  constantly  uses  in  speaking  of 
a  child's  activity,  and  he  does  more  than  merely 
"  imply "  that  this  process  "  tends  in  a  certain 
direction,  or  toward  a  certain  end  "  when  he  affirms 
that  "  In  every  activity,  in  every  deed  of  man,  and  of 
the  smallest  child,  an  aim  is  expressed." 

Professor  Stout  goes  on  to  say  that  in  conscious 
states  we  can  always  distinguish  between  determina- 
tion from  within  and  from  without,  and  "it  is  a  point 
of  vital  significance  that  this  distinction  coincides  with 
that  between  mental  activity  and  mental  passivity,  ""j" 
With  mental  passivity  Froebel  has  but  few  dealings, 
if  indeed  he  has  any.  There  is  one  passage  in  which 
he   uses    the   word    passive    (passiv) ;     this,    however, 

♦  According  to  this  principle,  the  mere  fact  that  a  particle  is 
moving  with  a  certain  velocity  in  a  certain  direction,  is  in  itself  a 
reason  why  it  should  continue  to  move  with  the  same  velocity  in  the 
same  direction.  .  .  .  Now,  in  so  far  as  continuance  of  change  in  a 
certain  direction  is  traceable  to  the  pre-existence  of  change  in  that 
direction,  this  whole  process  may  be  regarded  as  being  in  a  perfectly 
intelligible  sense,  self-determining  ("  Analytic  Psychology,"  Vol.  I, 
p.  146). 

t  "  Analytic  Psychology,"  Vol.  I,  p.  147. 


216   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

merely  states  that  the  child,  in  accommodating  himself 
to  his  surroundings,  may  outwardly  appear  inactive 
or  passive,  but  only  in  order  to  have  more  scope  for 
his  inner  activity  (wo  es  ausserlich  als  unthatig,  leidend 
[passiv]  erscheint  .  .  .  um  so  seiner  innern  Thatig 
keit  mehr  Spielraum  zu  verschaffen). 

From  what  he  does  say  there  is  little  doubt  but 
that  Froebel  would  willingly  have  subscribed  to  Pro- 
fessor Stout's  dictum,  "  that  to  be  mentally  active  is 
identical  with  being  mentally  alive  or  awake,*  though 
in  degree  the  activity  may  shade  off  gradually  from 
that  "  involving  a  sense  of  strain,  to  that  of  almost 
passivity."  But  just  as  Professor  Stout  rejects  the 
idea  of  purely  passive  consciousness,  so,  too,  does  he 
reject  "  pure  "  mental  activity.  "  It  is  impossible  to 
find  any  bit  of  mental  process  which  is  determined 
purely  from  within. "f  ..."  At  the  same  time  it  is 
equally  true  that  no  change  within  is  entirely  deter- 
mined from  without."  J  Mr.  Stout  does  not  say  that 
pure  activity — a  purely  self-determined  process — can- 
not exist,  for  "  we  should,  by  parity  of  reasoning,  be 
bound  to  reject  the  second  law  of  motion." §  "But 
it  rests,"  he  says,  "  with  the  advocates  of  pure  activity, 
if  there  are  such,  to  adduce  a  case  of  it,  and  until  such 
a  case  is  brought  forward  we  must  assume  that  there 
is  none.  .  .  .  No  portion  of  matter  can  be,  even  for  a 
moment,  outside  the  sphere  of  influence  of  other 
portions." 

We  have  seen  that  Mr.  O'Shea  practically  accuses 
Froebel  of  being  an  "  advocate  of  pure  activity,"  || 
nor  is  he  the  only  one  of  Froebel's  critics  who  does  so. 
If,  however,  it  be  considered  an  accident  that  Froebel 

*  "  Analytic  Psychology,"  Vol.  I,  p.  168. 
•f-  "  Analytic  Psychology,"  Vol.  I,  p.  155. 
%  "Analytic  Psychology,"  Vol.  I,  p.  166. 
§  "  Analytic  Psychology,"  Vol.  I,  p.  156. 
11  P.  191. 


THE  MEANING  OF  THE  WORD  "ACTIVITY"  217 

should  in  one  passage  put  "  conscious  self-determina- 
tion "  at  the  highest  point  of  life  development,  and  in 
another  passage  give  this  place  to  "  activity  "  which 
Mr.  Bradley  and  Mr.  Stout  tell  us  is  to  be  regarded  as 
self-determined,  is  it  also  an  accident  that  in  the  very 
same  passage  Froebel  should  state  that  "  everything 
in  Nature  develops  and  forms  itself  under  the  total 
collective  influence  of  all  other  things"? 

If  these  correspondences  are  not  accidental,  then 
it  must  be  allowed  in  the  first  place  that  Froebel 
attached  a  fairly  definite  meaning  to  the  word  "  acti- 
vity," including  self-determination  in  its  connotation  ; 
and  in  the  second  place  that  the  grounds  on  which  he 
is  charged  with  being  a  believer  in  "  pure  activity  " 
are  very  insufficient.  When  Mr.  Stout  says  that  even 
if  it  is  allowable  "as  an  illustrative  hypothesis  "  to 
regard  the  physical  universe  as  an  internally  complete 
sj'^stem,*  it  is  clear  that  "  the  stream  of  individual 
consciousness  is  no  such  self-contained  unit,"  but  "  the 
merest  fragment  of  universal  reality,  as  its  correlated 
brain  process  is  the  merest  fragment  of  the  material 
world"!"  "  ;  is  this  anything  but  a  statement  of  that 
unity,  on  which  Froebel  insists  in  season  and  out  of 
season — which  appears  on  almost  every  page  of  his 
writings,  so  that  the  word  has  become  the  veriest 
"  cant "  of  the  half -trained  Kindergarten  teacher  J. 

The  philosophic  conception  of  unity,  the  belief  that 
there  is  no  separation  in  either  world,  physical  or 
psychical,  or  between  either  world,  was  always 
present  to  Froebel' s  mind.  "  In  Nature,"  he  writes, 
"  every  phenomenon  has  its  sufficient  foundation  and 
its  necessary  consequence."     But  as  every  philosopher 

*  And  so  to  regard  "each  successive  moment  of  the  world- 
process  as  issuing  out  of  the  preceding  by  purely  immanent 
casuality." 

t  "Analytic  Psychology,"  Vol.  I,  p.  156. 

%  "  Unity  and  Froebel  are  synonymous  terms,"  is  one  "  howler " 
from  a  student's  examination  paper. 


218   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

would  say,  so  Froebel  said,  "  Separation  is  permitted 
for  the  observing,  thinking  and  comparing  intellect, 
and  the  outwardly  representing  life,  and  is  indeed 
required  by  it,  but  must  by  no  means  on  that  account 
be  permitted  to  appear  in  the  mind  which  is  intended 
to  grasp  and  constantly  to  retain  in  its  original  inner 
union,  that  which  is  outwardly  apparently  separated 
by  the  thinking  intellect,  the  reason  and  the  life."* 
So  Professor  Miinsterberg,  writing  as  a  professed 
scientist,  says,  "  Science  is  to  me,  not  a  mass  of  dis- 
connected information,  .  .  .  but  the  certainty  that 
nothing  can  exist  outside  the  gigantic  mechanism  of 
causes  and  effects,  but  Science  is  not  and  cannot  be, 
and  ought  never  to  try  to  be,  an  expression  of  ultimate 
reality."! 

It  would  never  have  dawned  on  Froebel,  nor  would 
it  have  appealed  to  him,  to  separate  his  philosophy 
from  his  science,  but  there  is  no  more  contradiction 
in  Froebel' s  "  self -activity  "  which  is  influenced  from 
without,  than  there  is  in  Professor  Stout  when  he 
speaks  of  self-determination  as  included  in  the  con- 
notation of  "  activity,"  and  adds  that  until  a  case  of 
"  pure  activity  "  is  brought  forward,  we  must  assume 
that  there  is  none. 

Of  all  his  "  means  of  play,"  Froebel  says  : 

"  In  order,  therefore,  on  the  one  hand  to 
introduce  the  child  to  the  handling  of  his  play 
material,  we  gave  him  the  ball,  .  .  .  but  each  of 
these  means  of  play  summons  the  child  in  return 
to  self -activity,  to  free  self-activity  ;  to  movement, 
to  free  independent  movement  "  (zur  Selbsthatig- 
keit,  zur  freien  Selbsthatigkeit ;  zur  Bewegung, 
zur  freien,  inabhangigen  Bewegung). | 

*  Ed.  by  Development,  p.  212. 

t  "The  Eternal  Life,"  p.  14. 

X  "  Das  Kindergartenwesen,"  p.  330. 


APPENDIX  II 

Comparison  of  Plays  noted  by  Froebel  with 
THE  Enumeration  given  by  Groos 

V^UCH  that  is  given  in  Groos'  more  elaborate 
classification  can  also  be  found  in  Froebel's 
suggestions,  particularly  where  younger  children  are 
concerned.  For  plays  coming  under  the  heading  of 
Playful  Activity  of  the  Sensory  Apparatus,  Froebel 
has  a  parallel  for  every  kind  except  that  of  Tempera- 
ture, and  for  this  Groos  has  not  himself  found  any- 
thing that  can  fairly  be  called  play. 

For  Sensations  of  Contact  there  is  the  Kicking 
Play,  and  Taste  and  Smell  are  also  represented  in  the 
Mother  Play  book.  For  Hearing  play  we  have  the 
wooden  ball,  "  a  plaything  for  the  child  liable  to 
produce  noise  by  its  movement,"  as  well  as  the  Tic-tac 
and  Finger  Piano  plays,  and  for  receptive  play,  the 
mother  is  told  to  speak,  rhythmically  if  possible,  or  to 
sing  with  every  play.  For  Sensations  of  Brightness 
we  have  "Mother  you  want  to  foster  this  delight  in 
all  things  that  are  sparkling  clear  and  bright"  of  the 
"Fish  in  the  Brook,"  as  well  as  "The  Lightbird,"  which 
Froebel  has  "found  over  and  over  again  in  all  grades 
of  the  culture  that  makes  up  social  life  in  village  and 
in  town." 

Sensations  of  colour  are  well  provided  for.  In 
"  The  Two  Windows "  we  have  :  "  See  the  beautiful 
coloured  circles  and  rays,  just  like  rainbow  and  dew- 
drops,  see  how  beautifully  the   colours  play  through 


220   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

each  other."  Colour  is  a  feature  in  Gift  I,  in  beadwork, 
in  the  tablets,  in  paper  folding,  cutting  and  plait- 
ing, and  besides  these  there  are  crayons  and  paints, 
and  frequent  reference  is  made  to  the  child's  pleasure 
in  the  colour  of  flowers. 

Froebel  also  makes  much  play  depend  on  percep- 
tion of  form  :  "Attention  to  the  form  and  figure  of 
the  object  can  also  be  utilized  for  the  child  in  play," 
or,  again,  "Early  in  life  the  child  delights  in  round  and 
varied  pebbles,  he  seeks  and  collects  them,  he  takes 
pleasure  in  the  straight  edged  and  right  angled."  He 
has  found  "The  Target"  play  very  widely  spread, 
"plainly  because  it  contains,  as  I  see  it,  the  first  trace 
of  an  endeavour  to  make  a  child  notice  position  and 
form." 

For  perception  of  movement,  to  which  Froebel 
would  have  added  perception  of  change  of  position, 
there  are  many  plays  with  the  ball  as  well  as  "Tic-tac," 
"The  Child  and  the  Pigeons,"  "The  Lightbird,"  "The 
Fish  in  the  Brook,"  etc. 

Groos'  next  class  is  Play  with  the  Motor  Apparatus 
and  under  this  comes  first  Playful  movement  of  the 
Bodily  Organs.  Here  we  have  Froebel  saying  :  "  The 
first  toys  and  occupations  of  the  child  come  from 
himself  :  he  plays  with  his  own  limbs. " — L.,  p.  108. 
"  The  child  at  this  stage  begins  to  play  with  his 
limbs — his  hands,  his  fingers,  his  lips,  his  tongue,  his 
feet,  as  well  as  with  the  expression  of  his  eyes  and 
face. "— E.,  p.  48. 

Under  playful  locomotion,  Groos  actually  quotes 
Froebel' s  description  of  the  child  learning  to  walk, 
and  we  have  also  marching,  running,  and  racing  games ; 
"the  large  majority,"  says  Froebel,  "I  have  created 
simply  by  watching  the  children  at  play.  .  .  .  Thus 
I  have  prepared  a  limping-game  because  I  see  my 
boys  always  limping  and  hopping." 


COMPARISON  OF  PLAYS  221 

Next  comes  Playful  Movement  of  Foreign  Bodies, 
and  under  this  heading  Groos  gives  "Hustling  things 
about,  pushing,  pulling,  shaking,  seizing  and  pushing 
away,  dabbling  in  water,  handling  sand  and  clay, 
kite-flying,  and  capture  of  insects."  Of  these  Froebel 
mentions  pushing  of  carriages,  kite-flying,  hobby-horse 
riding  ;  he  makes  much  of  play  with  water,  sand  and 
clay,  and  he  speaks  of  the  catching  of  insects,  etc., 
desiring  that  it  should  be  wisely  checked  by  directing 
the  activity  into  other  channels. 

As  to  Destructive  or  Analytic  Movement  Play, 
Froebel  notes  that :  "  The  child  wishes  to  know  all  the 
properties  of  the  thing,  for  this  reason  he  examines  it 
on  all  sides  ;  for  this  reason  he  tears  and  breaks  it ; 
for  this  reason  he  puts  it  in  his  mouth  and  bites  it." 
— E.,  p.  73.  "The  cruel  treatment  of  insects  and  other 
animals  originates  in  the  little  boy's  desire  to  obtain 
an  insight  into  the  life  of  the  animal." — E.,  p.  164. 

Of  Constructive  or  Synthetic  Movement  Play,  so 
much  has  been  said  already,  that  it  is  not  necessary 
to  dwell  on  it.  Froebel,  in  fact,  gives  a  far  more 
inclusive  account  of  this  than  Groos  himself,  not 
omitting  his  "simplest  form,"  viz.  moulding  new  forms 
with  sand,  etc.,  nor  the  collecting  and  arranging  in 
rows  which  to  Groos  and  to  Froebel  is  a  more  primitive 
form  of  construction.  Of  Exercise  of  Endurance,  too, 
we  have  spoken,  in  quoting  passages  where  Froebel 
shows  the  boyish  desire  to  measure  and  to  increase 
strength.  Throwing  and  Catching  Plays  have  their 
place  in  the  "Apprentice  and  Master  Workman" 
game. 

The  important  third  class,  the  Playful  Use  of  the 
Higher  Mental  Powers,  includes  according  to  Groos 
a  good  deal  that  he  has  dealt  with  under  other  heads, 
e.g.  Memory  Play  includes  (a)  Recognition  and  (6) 
Reflective    Memory.     Under    the    former    comes    that 


222   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

pleasure  in  recognition  of  form  which  has  already  been 
dealt  with,  the  pleasure  given  by  pictures,  often,  says 
Groos,  greater  than  is  given  by  the  reality.  Froebel, 
too,  says  that  if  the  father  makes  a  sketch,  "this  man 
of  lines,  this  horse  of  lines,  will  give  the  child  more 
joy  than  an  actual  man,  an  actual  horse  will  do." 
— E.,  p.  77.  Froebel,  too,  notes  the  pleasure  it  will 
give  a  child  to  name  flowers  through  recognition  of  a 
form  :  "  Spurred  like  a  rider,  circled  like  a  snail,  um- 
brellas, wheels,  he'll  find  the  names." — M.,  p.  181. 
There  is  also  the  recognition  of  animal  and  other 
noises,  as  in  Froebel' s  Yard  Gate.  Rote  learning  as 
a  play  Froebel  hardly  mentions. 

As  to  the  two  groups  which  Groos  brings  under 
the  heading  of  Imagination,  viz.  "Illusion  either  play- 
ful or  serious,"  and  "the  voluntary  or  involuntary 
transformation  of  our  mental  content,"  these  receive 
full  recognition.  Froebel  notes  how  the  stick  becomes 
a  horse  or  the  knotted  handkerchief  the  baby,  as  well 
as  the  play  of  listening  to  and  inventing  stories. 

Under  the  head  of  Attention  comes  such  games  as 
Hide  and  Seek,  because  of  the  alternate  stress  and 
relaxation,  and  Froebel  noted  before  Darwin  did  the 
pleasure  of  the  baby  in  Bo-peep.  Groos  also  brings 
curiosity  under  this  heading,  and  we  have  seen  that 
Froebel  deals  fully  with  such  play  as  the  outcome  of 
the  instinct  of  investigation,  or  the  instinct  for  self- 
teaching. 

Froebel  would  certainly  not  draw  the  line  where 
Groog  does,  when  he  says  "the  true  characteristics  of 
play  are  in  inverse  ratio  to  the  intensity  of  the  desire 
for  knowledge,"  and  if  this  rule  were  strictly  adhered 
to,  a  good  deal  of  what  Groos  does  call  play  might  have 
to  come  out. 

The  plays  which  fall  under  the  head  of  Reason 
have   two   bearings,    says   Groos,    first   causality,   and 


COMPARISON  OF  PLAYS  228 

second  inherence.  There  are  various  references  to 
the  "joy  of  being  a  cause"  from  the  child  "whose 
capacity  for  speech  is  as  yet  undeveloped,"  but  who 
draws  away  the  support  and  as  the  cube  falls  "turns 
to  his  mother  in  joyous  triumph,"  up  to  the  pride  of 
Keilhau  boys,  who  "might  not  have  accomplished 
their  fortresses  without  the  sapper,"  but  "who  be- 
lieved that  if  cast  on  a  desert  island,  each  could  build 
a  hut  of  his  own."  Froebel  also  brings  in  intellectual 
games  such  as  draughts,  and  he  notes  how  children 
will  invent  their  own  words  and  their  own  alphabets 
in  play.  Of  the  making  and  solving  of  riddles  I  think 
Froebel  never  speaks. 

As  to  what  Groos  says  of  Experimentation  with 
the  feelings,  the  parallels  in  Froebel  are  surprise  plays 
such  as  Hide  and  Seek,  adventure  and  hunting  games 
where  there  may  be  play  with  fear,  and  the  legends  and 
stories. 

Under  the  Impulse  of  the  Second  or  Socionomic  order, 
come  the  Fighting  Plays,  Love  Play,  Imitative  Play, 
and  Social  Play.  Of  Love  Play,  Froebel  has  none, 
but  the  hunting  and  fighting  were  allowed  abundant 
scope  at  Keilhau.  Of  Imitative  Play  there  is  much 
that  can  be  cited  from  the  playful  imitation  of  simple 
movements  and  sounds  in  the  Mother  Songs  and  the 
Kindergarten  Games,  to  the  "classic  dramas"  of  the 
Keilhau  boys.  Plastic  and  constructive  play,  too,  goes 
from  the  simplest  sand  play,  through  the  Kindergarten 
handwork,  not  only  up  to  the  fortress  making,  but 
also  to  the  "boxes  with  locks  and  hinges,  so  neatly 
finished,  veneered,  and  polished  that  many  a  trained 
cabinet-maker's  apprentice  could  have  done  no  better," 
which  were  made  at  Keilhau. 

Of  the  Social  Plays  Groos  says  with  feeling  that, 
however  advisable,  it  is  wellnigh  impossible  to  make  a 
distinct  class.     He  starts,  however,  with  the  "need  of 


224   FROEBEL  AND  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY 

bodily  association  or  the  herding  instinct."  He  brings 
in  the  child's  eager  desire  to  be  with  his  fellows,  and 
the  importance  in  adult  life  of  festivals,  religious  or 
otherwise.  He  mentions  the  child's  voluntary  sub- 
mission to  a  leader,  and  speaks  of  play  as  instrumental 
in  teaching  children  submission  to  law.  We  have 
noticed  Froebel  speaking  of  the  "combined  games, 
which  will  train  the  child,  by  his  very  nature  eager 
for  companionship,  in  the  habit  of  association  with 
comrades,  in  good  fellowship  and  all  that  this  implies." 
He  also  wants  the  child  to  take  alternately  some  special 
part  in  the  game  and  to  be  merely  one  of  the  crowd  : 
"Each  child  should  have  a  chance  to  lead,  for  it  is 
especially  developing  to  a  child  to  recognize  himself 
as  independent  as  well  as  a  member  of  the  whole." 
Among  the  older  boys,  the  Bergwachts  for  instance 
were  carefully  organized  under  separate  leaders  and 
the  captain  of  the  first  band  was  director  of  the  whole. 
Froebel,  too,  made  much  of  festivals  at  Keilhau,  and 
this  has  always  been  a  recognized  feature  of  the  Kinder- 
garten. 

Enjoyment  of  the  comic  never,  I  think,  makes  its 
appearance  at  all.  Froebel  had  many  gifts,  but  the 
saving  sense  of  humour  does  not  appear  to  have  been 
among  them. 


INDEX 


Acquisition,  Instinct  of,  96,  109 
Activity,  Spontaneous,  132 
Differentiation,  90 
Earliest  Activity,  1,  9,  34,  126 
Consciousness  and  Self-Con- 
sciousness,      Develop- 
ment of,  48,  81,  84,  85 
Nature  of  First  Voluntary 
Employments,  135 
Expression,  see  that  title 
Foundation  of  Education,  6, 

84,  142,  210 
Fundamental    Tendency,    47, 

85,  88,  90 

Meaning  of,  in  Froebel's  Writ- 
ings, 213  et  seq. 
Self-determination  included  in 

connotation,  217 
Universal  Impulse,  90,  126 
Adams,  Prof.,  quoted,  190,  210 
Amusement,    Distinction    from 

Play,  134 
Analysis  of  Mind 

Observation    and    Introspec- 
tion, 12 
Order     of     Investigation     of 
Laws  of  Mental  Process, 
3,  4 
Sense  and  Understanding,  In- 
separability, 17,  20 
Tri-unc  Character,  13 
Animal  Instincts,  72 
Anticipations    of   Modern    Psy- 
chology,   2    et    seq. — Sum- 
mary, 10 
Anthropological  Aspect  of  Psy- 
chological Inquiry,  4,  8,  206 
Approbation,  Love  of,  114,  115 
Arrangement   and   Comparison, 

101,  166 
Artistic  Tendencies  of  Children, 
105 


Associationists,  Fallacy  of,  38 
'*  Atomistic  View,"  38,  39 
Attacks  on  Froebel,  2,  190-1 


Baer  referred  to,  206 

Baldwin,  Prof.,  quoted,  50,  52 

Ball-Play — Ideas  to  be  gained, 
etc.,  40,  150,  151,  155,  156, 
159 

Batch,  Froebel's  connection 
with,  199 

Biological  Studies,  Influence  on 
Froebel's  Views,  connection 
with  stress  laid  on  Develop- 
ment, etc.,  13,  40,  67,  138, 
192,  199,  210 

Blow,  ISIiss  Susan — Froebel's 
Symbolism,  179,  189 

Bradley,  Mr.,  quoted,  218 


Cause,  Early  Notice  of,  160 

Change — Use  in  fixing  Impres- 
sions, 43,  152 

Collecting  or  Acquiring  Instinct, 
96,  109 

Colour,  Sense  of,  165,  166 

Community,  Feeling  of,  refer  to 
Social  Instinct 

Comte  referred  to,  206 

Conation,  refer  to  Will 

Connection  or  Unification,  Law 
of,  204 

Conscience,   references  to,   116, 
117. 

Consciousness 

Development  by  Action,  48 — 
Movement  stopped  by 
Something,  49,  52 


226 


INDEX 


Earliest  Consciousness 

Absolute  Beginnings — Be- 
yond the  pale  of 
Science,  41 
Indefiniteness,  39,  49,  91 — 
Undifferentiated,  un- 
organized Unity,  91, 
201 
Process   of  Differentiation, 

40,  42,  47 
Reasoning  and  Constructive 
Imagination,  36,  38 
Unity  of,  26 

See  also  title  Self-Conscious- 
ness 
Construction,  Instinct  of,  90 
"  Sense  of  Power,"   i.e.,  Self- 
Consciousness     resulting, 
109,  133 
Subserving    Instinct    of    In- 
vestigation, 92,  94 
Continuous     Development,    see 

Development 
Cooke,    Mr.    Ebenezer,    quoted, 

102,  199,  202 
Counting,  Development  of  Capa- 
city for,  101,  102 
Criticisms  of  Froebel,  2,  190 
"  Culture  Epochs  "  Theory,  129 


Darwin,  references  to,  67,  201 

Development — Froebel's  Theory 

of  Continuous  Development, 

10,  128.  140,  178,  179,  206. 

207,  209 

Biological  Studies,  Connection 

with,  13 
Development     from     within, 

136,  192,  195,  196 
"  Harmonious  Development," 

14-16 
Indi\idual    development    of, 
following     that     of    the 
Race,  206 
Law  of — Unlimited  to  Limi- 
ted, Whole  to  Part,  In- 
definite to  Definite,   40, 
130,   150,   151,  155,  201, 
202 
Possibilities  and  Conditions  in 
place  of  Faculties,  18-20 
Reconciliation    of   Opposites, 
Result  of,  204 


Self-directed  Process,  212  note 
Three  Stages,  71 
Development    of   Species,    Mo- 
dernness  of  Froebel's  View, 
205 
Dewey,  Prof. 

Experimental   Work   at   Chi- 
cago, 129 
Summary  of  Froebel's  Edu- 
cational Principles,  6 
Discipline 

Adjusting  Claims  of  Freedom 

and  Authority,  197 
Direction     of    Impulse,     not 

Opposition,  212  note 
Non-interference  Theory,  190, 
191,  192  note,  193-5 
Doll-Play,  167 
Drawing 

Counting  Capacity,  Means  of 

developing,  101 
Origin    of  Earliest   Drawing, 

103 
Process  of  discovering  "  Linear 
Phenomena,"  103,  166 
Duties  as  a  means  of  realizing 
Kinship,  61,  114,  118 


Ebers — Account  of  Life  at  Keil- 

hau,  123,  147,  168 
Eby,  Mr.,  quoted,  7,  79 
Emotion,  see  Feeling 
Employment,  Instinct  of,  refer  to 

Activity 
Environment,    Alleged   Neglect 
by     Froebel,      190,     196— 
Reply  to  Critics,  197,  199, 
200-4,  208,  210 
Evolution — Froebel's  Post-Dar- 

winianism,  198,  205 
Experimenting — Mode     of    In- 
vestigation, 102 
Exploring  Tendency,  94-5 
Expression 
Art  as,  105 

Feeling,    Importance   in   De- 
velopment of,  57-62 
Need  for,  50,  99,  133 
Play,  Definition  of,  124,  125 
Understanding,  Means  of,  92 


INDEX 


227 


Faculty    Psychology,    Criticism 

of,  13,  17  et  seq. 
Fairy  Tales,  108,  182 
Family  Bonds,  61,  113 
Fear,  Froebel's  attitude  towards, 

78  and  note 
Feeling,  Development  of,  etc., 
130 
Action,  Importance  of,  57-62 
Family  Bonds  and  Service  for 

the  Family,  61,  113 
Fundamental  Importance,  63 
Starting  Point  of  Education, 

117 
Want    of    Good    Feeling    in 
Children,  Cause,  63-4,112 
Fichte,  Reference  to,  204 
Fletcher,  Dr.,  quoted,  212  note 
Following  and  Tolerating — Cha- 
racter of  True  Education, 
160,  195 


Games,  refer  to  Play 

Genetic  Psychology  preceded  by 

Analytic,  3 
"Gifts"  and  "Gift  Plays" 
Description  of  the  Series,  159- 

166 
Excessive      Importance      at- 
tached to,  170 
Hailmann's,    Mr.,    distinction 
between      "Gifts"      and 
"Occupations,"  164,  165 
Psychological  Aim  or  Mean- 
ing,   40,    149,    150,    164, 
169,  178 
Selection    following    Natural 

Instinct,  169,  170 
Tri-Unity     of    Child-Nature, 
Relation  of  Gift  Plays  to, 
14 
Weakness  of  the  Series,  166 
Two     Mistakes,     and     the 
Psychological      Errors 
imderlying  them,  170-6 
Groos,    Karl,   quoted,    90,    125, 
126,  130,  132,  136,  137,  145, 
147,  219 
Griiner,  reference  to,  200 


H 

Habit 

Instinct,  Proof  of  existence  of, 

76 
Outcome  of  Impulse  of  Acti- 
vity, 88 
Kallmann,  Mr.,  quoted,  164,  193 
Hall,  Stanley,  quoted,  206 
"Harmonious      Development," 

14-16 
Hegel,  Froebel's  knowledge  of, 

205 
Helba  Plan,  26,  84,  212  note 
Herbartians — "Culture  Epochs" 

Theory,  129 
Home,  Prof.,  quoted,  17 

I 

Imitation 

McDou gall's,  Mr.,  Three 
Classes  of  Imitative 
Actions,  89 

Outcome     of    Activity     and 
Means  of  Expression,  47, 
.88,  126 

Results  gained,  50,  51,  91 
Instincts 

Classifications 
Eby,  79,  80 
Froebel,  83  et  seq. 
Kirkpatrick,  79,  80,  81 
McDougall,  79,  81 

Direction  and  Training 
needed,  71,  121 

Divergent  Views  a  matter  of 
Definition,  67-8 

Froebel's  belief  in  Instinct,  67, 
69,  70,  74,  125 

Froebel's  Terminology,  68,  69 

Habit  and  Instinct,  Inter- 
action between,  76 

Indefinite  in  Man — Proof  of 
Superiority  and  Capacity 
for  Progressive  Develop- 
ment, 66,  72,  75 

Specific  and  General  Tenden- 
cies, Distinction  between, 
68 

Specifically  Human  Instincts 
only  dealt  with  by  Froe- 
bel, 82 

Transitory  Nature,  75,  77,  78 

Two  Main  Lines  of  Instinctive 
Action,  83 


228 


INDEX 


Tnterdependence  of  Life,  62 
Intuition  of  Things — Dr.  Ward's 

Points,  154-5 
Investigation,    Instinct    of,    88, 

90-2,  94r-7,  102,  107 


James,  Prof.,  quoted,  39,  57,  59, 
65,  68,  69,  73-5 

Jarvis,  Miss — Translation  of  pas- 
sage re  Self-Consciousness, 
54 

Joy  in  Activity,  136-7,  139,  143, 
145 


Keilhau,  Life  at.  111,  123,  143, 
147,  168,  212  7iote,  223.  224 
Kindergarten 

Associated      Games,      Social 
Training,  etc.,   114,   146, 
147 
Defined,  90,  114,  142 
Disregard     of    Froebel's     in- 
structions   bv    his    disci- 
ples, 147,  170 
End  and  Aim  of,  90,  142,  208, 

210 
Gifts  and  Occupations,  refer 

to  title  Gifts 
No  gulf  between  Kindergarten 
and  "The  Education  of 
Man,"  210,  212  note. 
King,  Mr.  Irving,  quoted,  8,  26, 

48,  49,  50-2,  54 
Kirkpa  trick,  Mr.,  quoted,  79-80. 
114,  115,  117,  134 


Lamarck,  reference  to,  201 
Language 

Development  of  capacity  for 

Speech,  97-101 
Earliest    Training,    Use    in — 
Names  the  beginning  of 
Organization,  21,  29,  45, 
46,  98,  100 
Feeling,  Development  of,  58 
Location,  Sense  of,  152,  153 
Source    of   questioning    Acti- 
vity, 97 
Lodge,  Sir  Oliver,  quoted,  32 


M 

McDougall,  Mr.,  quoted,  68,  76, 
86,  89,  117 

MacVannel,  Dr.  J.  A.,  quoted,  10 

Marenholz,  Madame  von,  205 

Material  of  Instruction  and 
Manner  of  Teaching — Con- 
ditioned by  stage  of  De- 
velopment, 129 

Maternal  Instinct,  119,  120 

Mathematical  Perceptions — 
Over-estimate  of  Children's 
Capacity,  170-4 

Memory — Froebel's  Description, 
19 

Mental  Activity,  3,  4,  13,  23-7 
P^arUer  and  later  Forms,  30 
Possibilities  —  Difference   be- 
tween Child  and  Animal, 
49 
Sense     and     Understanding, 
Close  connection,  17,  20, 
207 

Mental  Analysis,  see  Analysis  of 
Mind 

Metaphor,  Froebel's  delight  in, 
187-8 

Moral  Faculty,  116,  118,  207 

Morgan,  Prof.  Lloyd,  quoted, 
33,  67,  72 

Mother  Wit — Need  for  Thought 
and  Training,  120,  211 

Movement,  see  Activity 

Miinsterberg,  Prof.,  quoted,  218 

Music — ^Importance  of  early 
Training,  106 

Mysticism,  see  Symbolism 

N 

Naming,  refer  to  Language 
Natural  Instincts,  see  Instincts 
Non  -  Interference,        Froebel's 

Theory  of,  190-5 
Number,  Discovery  of,  101,  102 


Observation  of  Children,  4-6,  8, 
9,  29,  74,  87,  92,  94,  96, 
103,  104,  109, 111, 133, 162, 
165 

Order,  Sense  of,  and  the  Instinct 
of  Rhythm,  115,  116 


INDEX 


229 


Organization  and  Language,  21, 

29,  45-6,  100 
Outer    Factor     in     Perception, 

over-emphasized   by   Froe- 

bel,  171,  173,  174 
O'Shea,  Prof.,  quoted,  97,  191, 

200,  207,  216 


Parental  Instinct,  119,  120 
Personality,    Consciousness    of, 

see  Self-Consciousness 
Philosophy,  Froebel's,  10 
Physical   and   Psychical,    Close 
connection  between,  17,  20, 
207 
Play 

Amusement,  Distinction  from, 

134 
Biological  View,  138 
Classifications    (Froebel    and 

Groos),  145,  219 
Earliest  Childhood,   Play  in, 

124,  125,  128,  130,  147 
Educative  Value,  Originality 

of  Froebel's  View,  122 
Groos'  Criteria,  130 
Guidance    needed,    143,    145 

and  note 
Imitative  Play,  88 
Joy  in  Games,  133,  136,  139 
Recreative  Play,  122 
Self-Consciousness,    Develop- 
ment of,  in  Boyhood,  56 
Social   Virtues,   Development 
by  Games,  111,  144,  146 
Surplus  Energy  Theory,  123, 

144 
Theories   of  Play — Recapitu- 
lation   and    Preparation, 
138,  140,  141,  142 
Work  and  Play 

Distinction  between — Froe- 
bel's   definition,     124, 
128 
Earliest  Activity — No  Dif- 
ferentiation, 130,  131 
Early    Boyhood,    Differen- 
tiation in,  131,  132 
Playgrounds,  Importance  of,  143 
Play-Material 

Definite    prescription    impos- 
sible, 167 
First  Playthings,  153 


Importance    in    relation     to 

Development,  148,  149 
Mistake   of  giving  expensive 

and  complex  toys,  164 
Number  and  variety  of  games 

noted,  147 
Object     of     Froebel's     play- 
material,  93 
See  also  title  Gifts 
Poems  and  Songs,  Use  in  De- 
velopment of  Feeling,   58, 
130 
Preyer  quoted,  52 
Psychological  Basis  for  Educa- 
tional Theories,  2 
Pugnacity,  Instinct  of,  86 
Purpose  of  Education,  200 
Refer  also  to  Self-Conscious- 
ness 

Q 

Quantity,  Relations  of,  101 
Questioning  Activity,  97 


Reflection,  Development  of,  75 
Religious  Instincts 

Foundation     in     Social     In- 
stincts, 115,  117 
Morality  and  Religion,  118 
Work  and  Religion,  127 
Religious  Convictions  of  Froebel, 

205-6 
Repetition,     Impressions    fixed 

by,  43,  152 
Representation      (Darstellung), 

see  Expression 
Rhythm — Importance   of  early 
development    of    Instinct, 
106,  160,  187 
Order,    Sense   of.  Connection 
with,  115,  116 
Ribot  quoted,  90,  126 
Romanes  quoted,  68 
Royce,  Prof.,  quoted,  31 

S 
Seele,  Ida,  209 
Self-Abasement  and  Self-Asser- 

tion.  Instincts  of,  86 
Self-Consciousness,Development 
of,  52,  53,  56,  84,  109,  116, 
117,  153 
Early  Developments,  54,  55 


280 


INDEX 


Indefiniteness  of  Instinct  ren- 
dering development  pos- 
sible, 82 
Purpose    of    Education    and 
"End  of  Man,"  30-5,  53, 
178 
Tales,    Craving    for,    due    to 
nascent  idea  of  Self,  57, 
107 
Self-Determination,  refer  to  Will 
Self-Employment,  refer  to  Acti- 
vity 
Self-Instruction,      Instinct      of, 

refer  to  Investigation 
Sense  and   Movement,  Connec- 
tion of,  48 
Sense  and  Understanding,  Close 

connection  of,  17,  20,  207 
Separation  attempted  in  use  of 
"  Gifts  "    —    Psychological 
error,  175-6 
Service  as  Expression  of  Feeling, 

59,  60 
Social  Instinct 

Development  from  the  "Feel- 
ing of  Community,"   91, 
110-12 
Earlv  Training  essential,  63-4, 

112 
Games,  Education  in,  111-12, 

144,  146 
Religious   Instincts,   Founda- 
tion of,  115,  117 
Speech,  refer  to  Language 
Spencer,  Herbert,  quoted,  206 
Sphere    and    Cube    (Gift    II)— 
Material    for    Comparison, 
41,  159,  161 
Spontaneous  Activity,  see  Acti- 
vity 
Stories,  Interest  in,  57,  107 
Stout,  Prof.,  quoted,   3,  4,   12, 
22,  23,  24,  26,  36,  37,  38, 
48,  73,   135,  213,  215,  216 
Summary  of  Froebel's  Educa- 
tional Principles,  6 
"Surplus  Energy"  Theory,  123, 

144 
Symbolism — Froebel's      alleged 
excessive    and    far-fetched 
Symbolism,  169,  179-82 
Exaggeration  by  disciples  and 
translators,  183-6,  188 


Instances — Practical  applica- 
tion usually  harmless, 
186-7 

T 
Tales,  Craving  for,  57,  107 
Thorndyke,  Prof.,  quoted,  180 
Time-Relations,  155 
Toys,   refer  to  titles   Gifts  and 

Play-Material 
Tri-une  Nature  of  Man,  10,  32, 

34,  89,  116,  126 

U 

Unfoldment,    Doctrine    of,    see 

Development 
Unification  or  Connection,  Law 

of,  204-5 
Unitv  and  Complexity,  155,  157, 
158 
Froebel's  yearning  for  Unity, 
199,  217 

W 

Wallas,      Mr.      Graham — Criti- 
cisms of  Froebel,  190,  196, 
197,  198,  199,  20],  208 
Ward,  Dr.,  quoted,  17,  20,  36, 
37,  38,  149,  151,  152,  154, 
155,   157,   158 
Welton,  Prof.,  quoted,  212  note 
Will 

Definitions       (Froebel       and 

Stout),  22 
Development 

Action  and  Feeling,  Devel- 
opment through,  35 
Bound  up  with  Intellectual 

Development,  26,  27 
Parallel  Accounts  (Froebel 

and  Stout),  27,  28 
Self-Consciousness     involv- 
ing true  volition,  30 
Winch,  Mr. — Criticism  of  Froe- 
bel, 192  note,  207 
Women's  Work  in  Education — 
Intelligent  knowledge  need- 
ed in  addition  to   natural 
Instinct,  120,  211 
Work 

Condition  of  best  work,  127, 

128 
Play,  Relation  to,  see  title  Play 
Religion  and  Work,  118,  119 
Wundt,  Prof.,  quoted.  68 


Geokge  Philip  &  Son,  Ltd.,  London 


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